30 
Cr 


Certain  Movements  in  England  and  America 

which  Influenced  the  Transition  from  the 

Ideals  of  Personal  Righteousness 

of  the  Seventeenth  Century 

to  the  Modern  Ideals  of 

Social  Service 


A  DISSERTATION 


SUBMITTED   TO   THE   FAC^ILTY 

OF   QUE   GRADUATE   SCHOOL  OF  ARTS  AND   LITERATURE 

IN  CANDIDACY  FOR  THE  DEGREE   OF 

DOCTOR   OF   PHILOSOBHY 

DnPARTMT-XT   OF   PHILOSOPHY 


(^KOkGE  TTLDEN  COLMAN 


Private  Edition,  Distributed  liy 

I  Ffi:  rJNTVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  LIBRARIKS 

CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 

1917 


EXCHANGE 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

Microsoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/certainmovementsOOcolmrich 


JLi^t  JttttorBttg  of  QIIjiras0 


Certain  Movements  in  England  and  America 

which  Influenced  the  Transition  from  the 

Ideals  of  Personal  Righteousness 

of  the  Seventeenth  Century 

to  the  Modern  Ideals  of 

Social  Service 


A  DISSERTATION 


SUBMITTED  TO  THE   FACULTY 

OF  THE  GRADUATE  SCHOOL  OF  ARTS  AND   LITERATURE 

IN  CANDIDACY  FOR  THE  DEGREE  OF 

DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

DEPARTMENT  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


BY 

GEORGE  TILDEN  COLMAN 


Private  Edition,  Distributed  By 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  LIBRARIES 

CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 

1917 


^r 


c1 


^0 


GEORGE  BANTA  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
MENASHA.  WISCONSIN 


90*  .V  '  J,  ".,' 


V- 


0- 


NOTE 

The  aim  of  the  author  has  been  to  trace  the  course  of  the  develop- 
ment of  social  ideals  in  England  and  America  during  the  eighteenth 
and  ninteenth  centuries  and  to  show  that  these  ideals  have  been  a  basal 
factor  in  furthering  economic,  poHtical,  religious,  and  intellectual  freedom 
for  the  masses  of  mankind.  It  has  not  been  possible  within  the  scope 
of  this  work  to  treat  of  the  influence  which  men  of  letters  have  exerted. 
The  broad  s)nnpathies  of  a  Dickens  and  an  Eliot  among  the  novelists, 
of  Burns,  Tennyson,  Coleridge,  and  the  Brownings  among  the  poets 
and  of  Ruskin  and  Carlyle  among  the  essayists  have  been  a  great  force 
in  softening  the  hearts  of  men.  But  to  treat  with  any  adequacy  the 
social  teachings  of  the  world  of  literature  would  require  an  additional 
volume  of  equal  proportions  with  the  present  one.  Herein  the  author 
has  sought  only  to  follow  out  the  evolution  of  the  social  ideal  through 
the  chief  economic,  religious,  and  philosophical  movements.  The  ad- 
vancement of  learning,  the  development  of  science  is  found  to  be  the 
underlying  basis  responsible  for  this  gradual  transformation  in  the 
motives  which  the  human  heart  has  valued. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

Page 

Summary vii 

CHAPTER  I 
Introduction 1 

CHAPTER  n 

The  Ethical  Ideal  or  Puritanism 8 

CHAPTER  III 
The  Rise  of  Commerce  and  Industry — 

The  Settlement  of  the  New  World 24 

CHAPTER  IV 
Deism  and  Rationalism 30 

CHAPTER  V 
The  Early  Eighteenth  Century  Moralists 38 

CHAPTER  VI 

Social  Unrest.. 42 

CHAPTER  VII 
The  Spread  of  Methodism 49 

CHAPTER  VIII 

The  Abolition  of  Slavery  and  the  Establishment 

OF  Christian  Missions 56 

CHAPTER  IX 
The  Evangelical  Movement  and  Parliamentary 

Social  Reform 64 

CHAPTER  X 
The  Broad  Church  Movement  and  Christian  Socialism 70 

CHAPTER  XI 

Utilitarianism 77 

CHAPTER  XII 
The  Workingman 86 

CHAPTER  XIII 
Science 96 

CHAPTER  XIV 
Democracy  and  Free  Public  Education 102 


SUMMARY 

I.  The  ethics  of  Puritanism  had  warned  the  individual  of  the  need 
and  the  difficulties  of  his  personal  salvation,  and  had  centered  interest 
upon  a  future  world. 

II.  The  rise  of  commerce  and  industry  assisted  in  creating  secular 
individuals  who  were  assured  of  their  own  powers  and  engrossed  in 
human  affairs. 

III.  The  rationalistic  movement  took  as  its  premise  the  dignity 
of  the  human  reason,  and  the  deistic  writings  enlarged  the  church  group- 
consciousness,  banished  hope  of  supernatural  interference,  and  exalted 
morality  of  life  above  prayer  and  profession. 

IV.  The  early  eighteenth  century  moralists  explicitly  formulated 
the  social  ideal,  showing  that  man  possessed  in  his  own  nature  benevo- 
lent sympathies  and  a  moral  sense  which  impelled  him  to  altruistic 
action. 

V.  The  growth  of  factories  and  of  large  bodies  of  dependent  wage- 
earners  created  a  class  peculiarly  in  need  of  cooperation  among  them- 
selves and  of  the  aid  of  public  law  and  private  generosity. 

VI.  The  spread  of  Methodism  and  of  Evangelicalism  created  an 
interest  in  the  welfare  of  the  lower  classes  and  awakened  enthusiasm 
for  social  reform. 

VII.  The  agitation  against  slavery  and  the  establishment  of  Chris- 
tian missions  drew  public  attention  to  movements  prompted  by  zeal 
for  the  good  of  humanity. 

VIII.  The  spread  of  knowledge  and  the  development  of  science 
have  operated  toward  a  recognition  of  the  value  of  human  life,  of  the 
organic  nature  of  society,  and  of  the  worth  of  all  classes  in  the  social 
whole. 

IX.  The  Utilitarian  "greatest  happiness"  principle  both  prompted 
definite  effort  for  public  good  and  gave  strong  theoretical  sanction 
to  the  social  ideal. 

X.  The  working  man  has  gradually  come  to  a  consciousness  of  his 
rights  and  his  duties  in  the  social  organism.  He  has  been  aided  by 
such  movements  as  Christian  Socialism,  Trade  Unionism,  free  public 
education,  social  service  organizations,  and  SociaUsm  proper. 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTION 

Is  it  true  that  the  course  of  the  world's  history  is  the  progressive 
struggle  of  the  human  soul  after  freedom?  Frequently  it  is  claimed 
that  intellectual  freedom,  the  escape  from  the  bondage  of  Scholasticism, 
was  the  achievement  of  the  Renaissance  of  the  fifteenth  century;  that 
reUgious  freedom  was  the  mighty  issue  in  the  Reformation  of  the  six- 
teenth century;  that  political  freedom  came  in  with  the  triumph  of 
democracy  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries;  and  that  now 
industrial  freedom  is  slowly  working  itself  out  to  be  the  contribution 
of  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth  centuries.  But  are  not  such  generali- 
ties true  only  for  the  favorites  of  fortune  at  each  successive  period? — 
those  endowed  by  nature  with  vigorous  mentality  and  those,  who,  by 
reason  of  birth  or  exceptional  qualifications,  are  able  to  free  themselves 
from  the  tyranny  of  bodily  needs  and  the  dominance  of  existing  institu- 
tions. They  are  never  true  for  the  great  mass  of  mankind  who  have 
always  been  slaves  to  their  own  selfishness  and  ignorance,  to  their  own 
physical  weaknesses,  to  environment,  to  public  opinion,  to  the  chance 
opportunities  which  befall  in  the  course  of  daily  life. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Renaissance  did  not  bring  intellectual  freedom 
to  mankind  so  long  as  man  despised  himseK  as  by  nature  depraved, 
and  even  so  long  as  conditions  of  life  remained  such  for  great  numbers 
as  to  give  them  neither  the  education  nor  the  time  which  are  necessary 
for  the  understanding  of  great  productions  of  thought.  Neither  did 
the  Reformation  bring  religious  freedom  so  long  as  men  believed  the 
avenues  of  salvation  to  be  not  through  the  touch  of  God  in  the  human 
heart,  but  solely  through  belief  in  the  tenets  of  an  infallible  revela- 
tion or  the  profession  of  a  sectarian  creed.  Nor  is  that  man  perfectly 
free  to  come  to  God  who  is  burdened  by  the  tyranny  of  an  evil  environ- 
ment or  by  the  exigencies  of  poverty  and  incessant  labor  or  by  the 
torture  of  unmitigated  physical  suffering.  Again,  can  anyone  be  so 
bold  as  to  claim  that  the  French  or  the  American  Revolution  brought 
any  really  complete  political  freedom  to  be  the  share  of  a  great  submerged 
portion  of  the  people?  The  power  of  wealth,  the  dominance  of  organ- 
ized vice,  the  force  of  selfish  class^interest,  the  rule  of  unscrupulous 
personalities  who  can  lead  ignorant  constituencies  by  understanding 
the  foibles  of  human  nature,  still  carry  elections  today  and  wield  voters 


as  easily  as  though  chains  were  about  their  necks.  By  the  successive 
struggles  through  the  centuries,  the  individual — certain  individuals — 
became  emancipated,  but  society  did  not.  Privileged  classes  gained 
the  right  to  think  as  they  chose,  then  to  worship  as  they  chose,  and 
finally  to  dictate  the  course  of  government.  But  of  what  avail  are 
books  to  him  who  cannot  read,  of  Sunday  schools  to  the  child  who  has 
no  coat,  of  a  pohtical  franchise  to  an  inmate  of  a  nefarious  resort  whose 
livelihood  depends  upon  obedience  to  a  grafting  politician? 

It  is  just  such  situations  which  the  ethics  of  individualism  did  not 
meet.  The  action  of  the  individual  motivated  wholly  by  his  own 
good  assumed  as  its  law  that  each  individual  must  work  out  his  own 
salvation;  that  every  man  for  himself  is  the  first  law  of  nature;  that  if 
each  person  only  looks  after  his  own  best  interest,  the  interest  of  the 
whole  will  be  gained;  that  "God's  in  His  heaven,  all's  well  with  the 
world."  Most  human  action  has  ever  been — and  shall  we  say  always 
will  be? — on  this  basis.  A  want  is  felt  by  the  organism  and  response 
follows  the  stimulus.  The  hunger  or  unsatisfied  longings  of  another 
can  manifestly  not  affect  me  with  the  same  somatic  sensations  and  mental 
perturbation  that  my  own  needs  arouse.  The  Hobbesian  philosophy 
of  the  seventeenth  century  postulated  frankly  the  inherent  and  neces- 
sary selfishness  of  human  nature.  Further,  it  was  believed  that  "en- 
lightened self-interest"  would  see  one's  own  dependence  upon  the  cosmic 
whole  and  would  seek  one's  own  personal  welfare  in  the  welfare  of  all. 
But  neither  religious  nor  political  nor  economic  nor  industrial  history 
bears  out  this  optimistic  hypothesis.  Religious  wars  and  sectarian 
persecution  sought  the  extermination  of  opponents  in  cases  where  strong 
personalities  refused  to  sacrifice  personal  worth  in  hypocritical  sub- 
mission. In  all  the  course  of  nations,  no  ruling  class  has  desired  to 
elevate  its  underlings  to  the  same  affluence  and  fullness  of  life  it  has 
sought  for  itself.  The  essence  of  competitive  business  has  been  personal 
gain — not  a  desire  that  production  should  be  as  cheap  as  possible  for 
the  consumer,  or  that  profit  should  be  justly  and  equitably  divided 
throughout  the  course  of  manufacture  and  distribution.  In  industry, 
human  labor  has  been  the  means  of  profit;  and  the  glory  of  the  adminis- 
trator the  end.  True  it  is  that  "benevolent  despots"  have  in  all  these 
several  fields  done  much  to  remove  abuses  and  to  introduce  improve- 
ments for  the  benefit  of  those  under  their  control.  But  no  abundance 
of  benevolent  despots  could  ever  purify  a  self-seeking  world,  where 
all  who  could  were  oppressing  all  who  could  not.  They  have  merely 
here  and  there  modified  a  few  factors  in  the  environment;  they  have 


merely  brought  a  touch  of  brightness  to  patches  of  our  world,  to  little 
groups  of  men  lost  in  the  mass  of  humanity. 

Freedom  must  ultimately  come  from  within.  It  cannot  be  a  gift 
from  without  sent  in  showers  of  blessing  upon  the  children  of  men. 
The  daily  workers  of  the  shop  or  field  or  factory  can  never  possess  true 
freedom  till  education  has  raised  them  where  they  are  no  longer  merely 
the  tools  of  other  men.  Whatever  the  profusion  of  parks  and  beauty 
spots  might  be,  they  lay  unu^sed  one  day  in  seven,  so  long  as  man  and 
the  rulers  whom  he  selected  believed  that  a  divine  mandate  forb  de 
pleasurable  enjoyment  on  the  Sabbath.  Freedom  comes  from  within, 
but  freedom  for  some  living  individual  is  interfered  with  in  every  act 
performed  on  the  competitive  basis.  Will  perfect  and  universal  freedom 
ever  be  achieved?  Perhaps  not,  but  we  are  interested  now  only  in 
progress  toward  that  end.  The  nineteenth  century,  in  laying  a  new 
stress  upon  the  old  motive  principle  of  brotherly  love,  has  opened  up 
a  hope  impossible  when  the  ideal  of  conduct  rested  upon  the  individual's 
desire  for  self-preservation  in  this  world  or  the  next.  So  long  as  man 
sought  only  for  himself  his  own  good,  there  could  never  appear  in  the 
masses,  who  did  not  know  their  own  good,  the  proper  mental  and  physi- 
cal development  necessary  for  inner  freedom.  The  goal  is  too  far  ahead 
— we  cannot  glimpse  its  fulfillment — when  there  shall  be  no  want  upon 
the  earth,  but  every  new  adherent  inclined  to  the  cause  of  the  social 
ideal  is  a  laborer  contributing  his  infinitesimal  part  to  the  happy  con- 
sumation.  Of  course,  no  individual  in  the  imperfection  of  human  char- 
acter as  we  know  it  can  guide  every  thought  and  action  in  the  interests 
of  the  purpose  "each  for  all,  and  all  for  each" — but  the  very  recogni- 
tion that  the  ideal  is  desirable,  the  felt  purpose,  blind  and  ill-directed 
though  it  be,  to  find  the  most  effective  means  of  social  uplift  signifies 
a  step  in  the  building  of  the  temple  of  human  perfection. 

Human  nature,  like  all  organic  life,  has,  since  the  beginning  of  exis- 
tence, sought  self-expression.  Man  proved  also  to  be  a  social  being, 
with  his  character,  his  desires,  his  very  mentality,  shaped  and  formed 
by  human  relations.  But  withal,  through  the  centuries  down  to  our 
own  era,  the  common  philosophy  of  life,  whether  formulated  into  theory 
or  implicit  in  conduct,  has  been  that  of  furthering  individual  develop- 
ment. Christianity,  in  fact  all  the  expressions  of  religious  interest 
in  its  manifold  forms,  held  out  the  goal  of  eternal  life  as  the  purpose  of 
earthly  existence.  In  so  far,  its  mission,  up  to  the  past  century  at 
least,  has  been  largely  the  giving  of  warning  and  inspiration  to  men 
to  save  their  own  individual  souls.    However,  unable  calmly  to  watch 


his  fellows  travel  to  eternal  destruction,  the  early  Christian  sought 
also  in  greater  or  less  degree  to  save  by  exhortation  his  neighbors  out 
of  this  vile  world.  Now  suddenly  in  many  a  pulpit  there  is  heralded 
a  "social  gospel"  and  on  the  lecture  platform  is  proclaimed  a  social 
ethics.  Truly  a  momentous  break  with  the  past  has  occurred.  The 
very  course  of  evolution  which,  up  to  this  time,  had  been  going  on  through 
the  ages  in  almost  a  straight  line  determined  by  the  struggle  for  exis- 
tence and  survival  of  the  fittest  takes  a  bend  when  great  numbers  of 
mankind  seek  not  their  own  perfection  but  the  perfection  of  the  race. 
The  evolutionary  process,  once  discovered,  is  being  brought  under 
control  ever  more  and  more  cleverly  and  comprehensively.  Sacrifice 
becomes  meaningful.  The  individual  stands  ready  to  give  of  his  talents, 
his  strength,  even  of  his  life  not  for  the  sake  of  an  indefinite,  hypothetical 
after-death  Elysium,  but  with  the  aim  of  contributing  toward  a  pro- 
cess of  human  development  whose  laws  he  knows  and  in  whose  course 
he  can  foretell  in  some  measure  what  the  contribution  of  his  own  effort 
may  effect.  The  social  ideal,  then,  has  been  steadily  enlarging  along 
with  the  progress  of  human  knowledge,  coincident  with  the  development 
of  scientific  thought.  Primitive  man  sought  human  welfare — perhaps 
his  own,  perhaps  that  of  his  family,  or  even  perhaps  that  of  his  tribe. 
Traditional  Christianity  sought  that  welfare,  but  now  conceived  in 
supposedly  ultimate  and  eternal  terms,  in  which  this  carnal  existence 
amounted  to  little  or  nothing.  The  ethics  of  modern  social  life  seeks 
also  human  welfare,  but  now  seen  in  the  light  of  a  comprehensive  grasp 
of  the  meaning  and  methods  of  world  progress.  The  savage  sought 
largely  sensuous  gratification,  the  Puritan  reUgious  sanctification  leading 
to  blessedness  in  a  future  life,  both  mainly  in  reference  to  self;  the  modern 
social  idealist  seeks  the  fullest  possible  enlargement  of  the  whole  physi- 
cal, intellectual,  and  spiritual  life  not  oily  of  _'self  but  of  §l11  men 

Well  into  the  eighteenth  century,  the  Puritan  ideals  of  salvation 
were  still  exerting  a  wide  sway  over  the  purposes  of  the  English  people.^ 
The  author  is  seeking  in  this  treatise  to  trace  the  fundamental  factors 
which,  within  a  single  century,  transformed  the  popular  aims  for  indi- 
vidual salvation  into  the  social  ideals  which  began  to  touch  all  ranks 
during  the  nineteenth.  Many  of  the  factors  affecting  the  transition 
have,  of  course,  been  at  work  throughout  history.  Here  and  there, 
persons  filled  with  love  and  sympathy  for  their  fellows  have  appeared, 

*  It  is  just  to  assert  that  to  this  day  security  in  eternal  life  continues  to  be  the  mo- 
tive to  which  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  makes  the  strongest  appeal  in  seeking  the 
loyalty  of  its  adherents. 


especially  in  emulation  of  the  Christ,  seeking  some  in  one  way,  some 
in  another,  to  better  the  human  lot.  But  the  idea,  that  the  great  pur- 
pose and  meaning  of  life  is  involved  in  service,  seems  to  be  the  light 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  At  least,  earlier  times  reveal  no  movement 
of  world  significance,  gripping  numbers  of  men,  which  leapt  over  all 
bounds  of  class  and  nation  and  race,  and  sought,  without  thought  of 
self,  to  labor  for  more  beautiful  and  more  efficient  earthly  life  for  all  men. 

We  live  in  an  atmosphere  today  which  is  charged  with  social  feeling, 
which  condemns  with  invincible  force  any  waste  of  life  or  needless 
suffering,  which  honors  a  Jane  Addams,  a  Jacob  Riis,  a  Judge  Lindsay, 
and  indeed  a  Woodrow  Wilson.  Our  rich  men  are  widely  known  for 
their  good  works — a  Carnegie  Library,  a  Rockefeller  Foundation,  a 
Henry  Ford  profit-sharing  plan.  True  it  is  that  against  these  names 
could  be  matched  thousands  of  other  business  men  who  are  notoriously 
self-seeking.  There  is  no  evidence  to  show  that  in  our  day  altruistic 
motives  have  already  proved  on  the  universal  scale  more  weighty  than 
selfish  ones.  The  significant  fact  is  simply  that  the  social  ideal  is  here, 
and  that  its  acceptance  has  spread  remarkably  during  the  course  of  the 
last  two  centuries.  Truly  an  aristocracy  of  service  has  arisen,  if  that 
be  not  a  contradiction  in  terms.  Herein  is  a  long  stride  away  from  the 
aristocracy  of  special  privilege,  ruling  since  written  history  began.  And 
it  is  only  through  the  working  out  of  this  ideal  of  mutual  love,  that  the 
lot  of  the  masses  can  be  so  improved  as  to  allow  for  development  in 
them  of  the  intellectual  freedom  which  the  Renaissance  did  not  give, 
the  religious  freedom  which  the  Reformation  did  not  offer,  and  the 
political  freedom  which  the  French  Revolution  did  not  secure. 

What,  then,  is  the  essence,  the  central  principle  of  modern  social 
idealism?  Is  it  merely  the  expression  of  a  yielding  to  a  blind  impulse 
to  helpfulness  and  love?  No,  it  is  that  principle  which  considers  human 
life  the  most  valuable  reality  in  the  universe.  It  assumes  that  mankind 
is  evolving  constantly  into  larger  and  larger  life.  It  believes  that  man, 
through  his  own  efforts  in  invention  of  automobiles  and  flying-machines, 
in  research  in  sanitation  and  medicine,  in  experimentation  for  the 
improvement  of  plant  and  animal  life,  in  a  study  of  the  conditions  which 
govern  society  and  make  for  equity,  and  in  the  spreading  of  all  this 
new  knowledge  through  general  education,  can  himself  direct  and  further 
and  hasten  that  evolution.  Herein,  we  have  come  very  close  to  the 
scientific  point  of  view.  And  modern  social  idealism  is  decidedly  scien- 
tific. It  has  taken  up  into  its  purposes  and  adapted  to  the  needs  of 
man  an  enormous  fund  of  knowledge  which  the  research  of  the  century 


has  brought  to  light.  An  eagerness  to  aid  humanity  has  been  an  incen- 
tive to  effort  after  greater  knowledge,  and  in  turn  increased  knowledge 
of  the  laws  of  life  has  awakened  men  to  the  need  and  opportunity  of 
altruistic  endeavor.  Action  and  reaction  have  been  constantly  present. 
Science  may  be  said  to  have  been  "discovered"  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury; in  the  same  century,  social  idealism  wove  its  aims  into  the  common 
religious  consciousness  and  even  into  the  hearts  of  masses  who  profess 
no  regard  for  supernatural  beliefs. 

Rapid  progress  of  science  and  philosophy  demands  untrammelled 
freedom  for  the  human  mind.  It  must  be  able  to  investigate  without 
preconceptions  or  artificial  restraints,  due  to  the  supposed  sacredness 
of  institutions  or  beliefs,  all  of  the  laws  and  conditions  which  regulate 
the  universe.  In  this  work  it  has  been  the  author's  effort  to  treat 
the  various  religious,  pohtical,  economic,  and  social  movements  of  the 
past  two  centuries  in  England  in  regard  to  the  contributions  which 
they  made  toward  a  softening  of  the  hearts  of  men,  toward  a  Uberalizing 
of  thought  and  investigation,  and  therefore  toward  a  realization  of  the 
needs  of  society. 

In  the  contention  that  the  modern  enthusiasm  for  social  ameUora- 
tion  has  been  largely  dependent  upon  the  great  development  of  human 
knowledge  during  the  past  two  centuries,  there  is  no  disparagement 
of  the  value  and  place  of  the  religious  consciousness  and  of  the  Chris- 
tian church  during  the  course  of  history.  Each  of  these  has  been  evolv- 
ing also,  seeking  ever  higher  and  broader  ideals,  and,  by  encouraging 
in  men  a  lofty  conception  of  duty,  by  urging  them  to  stop  and  think 
of  eternal  values  in  the  course  of  the  pursuit  of  carnal  desires,  has  aided 
and  stimulated  the  development  of  such  ideals.  In  some  cases  the  pro- 
gress of  science  has  been  aided  and  enthusiasm  in  its  pursuit  has  been 
generated  by  a  Christian  love  of  mankind,  in  others,  and  in  general 
on  the  side  of  the  conservative  organization  of  the  church,  the  researches 
of  a  Galileo,  a  Spinoza,  a  Kepler,  and  a  Newton  have  been  discredited 
and  hindered.  But  once  the  proposition  has  been  accepted  that  re- 
search in  all  the  various  fields  of  science  would  promote  human  welfare 
and  even  tell  us  more  of  God,  the  Christian  church  has  been  an  influence 
in  support  of  undertakings  for  the  spread  of  truth.  Even  in  the  days 
of  her  antagonism  towards  scientific  discovery,  her  benevolent  institu- 
tions were  doing  all  that  was  done  to  mitigate  the  burden  of  human  suf- 
fering. She  distributed  "charity"  and  relief  in  those  days  when  man 
did  not  know  how  to  remove  the  cause  of  evil,  but  only  to  apply  a  deaden- 
ing cocaine  to  its  cancerous  growths.    Through  her  earlier  history,  the 


church  did  not  possess  the  knowledge  of  how  to  save  men  in  this  world, 
so  she  made  it  her  primary  aim  to  save  them  in  the  next.  It  is 
not  denied  that  she  accepted  and  taught  love  as  a  cardinal  principle. 
And  yet  those  nations  which  called  themselves  Christian  and  the  masses 
of  the  members  of  official  churches  did  not  hold  that  the  essence  of 
moral  duty  was  service,  that  the  consummate  purpose  of  existence 
was  the  perfection  of  human  life,  and  that  all  men  equally  have  a  right 
to  share  in  the  goods  of  this  earth,  until  the  progress  of  economic,  politi- 
cal, and  social  science  forced  such  convictions  upon  them.  The  zeal 
manifested  now  by  individuals  and  organizations  avowedly  Christian 
in  such  lines  as  medical  missions,  the  promotion  of  peace,  and  the  fur- 
thering of  eugenics  through  marriage  restrictions  is  motivated,  and 
rightly  so,  in  terms  of  aiding  God's  purposes  and  preparing  self  and 
fellows  for  immortality.  But  this  enlargement  of  the  religious  ideal 
into  a  social  one  has  been  coincident  with  and  even  dependent  upon 
the  advance  of  scientific  thought.  Religious  conviction  has  been  modi- 
fied by  scientific  discovery,  rather  than  science  developed  by  religion. 
The  social  ideal  has  been  primarily  a  result  rather  than  a  cause  of  the 
progress  of  thought,  although  interaction  has,  of  course,  been  present 
throughout.  A  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  it  is  true,  centuries  ago  went 
about  from  land  to  land  doing  good.  But  the  masses  of  men — even 
Christians — never  accepted  until  the  nineteenth  century  the  view  that 
the  great  principle  of  their  lives  should  be  the  doing  of  good  to  all  of 
any  class  or  creed. 


CHAPTER  II 

The  Ethical  Ideal  of  Puritanism 

Neither  Luther  nor  Calvin  was  a  Democrat.  The  Reformation 
was,  to  be  sure,  a  revolt  against  the  arrogance,  the  bigotry,  the  cor- 
ruption, even  the  cruelty  and  vice  which  had  grown  up  in  the  heart 
of  a  church  secure  in  its  own  sense  of  infallibiUty.  Luther's  original 
appeal  was  to  the  consciousness  of  each  individual  Christian  who  felt 
the  conviction  of  God's  favor  upon  him.  The  behever  was  held  to 
be  independent  of  all  outer  authority,  if  he  was  assured  of  the  creation 
of  a  new  being  in  Christ  within  him  by  means  of  an  inner  moral  miracle. 
Thus  in  the  passion  of  his  protest  against  the  rigidity  of  CathoHcism, 
Luther  declared  it  the  privilege  of  every  Christian  to  create  his  own 
decalogue.  In  his  Primary  Work  he  extolled  the  right  of  the  individual, 
while  accepting  the  Holy  Scriptures  as  infallible,  to  interpret  them, 
untrammelled,  through  the  aid  of  the  spirit  within  him.  Apparently 
we  have  here  religious  freedom  and  toleration.  But  no  such  ideal 
was  really  in  the  minds  of  the  reformers.  The  Peasants'  War  arose, 
demanding  only  some  relief  from  wretchedness,  and  Luther  bade  the 
workers  almost  angrily  to  be  content  with  their  lot  and  to  listen  to  the 
commands  of  God's  word,  as  interpreted  by  himself.  He  denounced 
the  ethical  enthusiasm  of  individuals  as  often  misleading,  and  declared 
the  secular  rulers  to  be  divinely  called  to  guarantee  the  integrity  of  the 
orthodox  Lutheran  church  against  all  perversions.  In  fact,  he  appealed 
to  the  secular  rulers  to  preserve  the  protestant  church  in  the  same 
authoritative  fashion  which  Catholicism  had  made  use  of.  Luther 
never  contemplated  a  radical  shift  in  human  tasks,  but  rather  instilled 
a  religious  loyalty  to  the  present  regime,  asserting  the  duty  of  man  to 
work  out  his  own  salvation  at  the  post  which  Providence  had  assigned 
to  him.  Hence  Lutheranism  has  always  taken  an  attitude  which  regards 
social  revolution  as  wrong.  And  it  has  laid  a  heavy  emphasis  on  doc- 
trine, on  assent  to  its  own  theological  system  which  is  really  regarded 
as  infallible. 

Likewise,  Calvinism,  mainly  because  of  its  political  aims,  claimed 
in  the  name  of  God  authority  for  its  church.  It  proceeded,  therefore, 
to  organize  Christian  society  into  the  kind  of  organization  prescribed 
in  the  Bible,  and  to  discipline  those  who  did  not  live  up  to  it.  In  ac- 
cordance with  this  program,  Calvin  in  Geneva,  John  Knox  in  Scotland, 


Cromwell  in  England,  the  Puritans  in  America  all  sought  to  create  a 
poUtical  state  which  embodied  the  commands  of  God.  The  ideal  of 
Calvinism  is  a  theocracy  administered  byji  religious  aristocracy.  The 
real  ruler  is  conceived  to  be  God,  but  society  is  to  be  administered  under 
His  direction  by  men  who  live  according  to  the  Bible. 

Now  Puritanism  is  really  the  expression  of  the  ethics:  of  the  Reforma- 
tion taken  over  into  England.  The  revolt  against  the  ritual,  the 
indulgences,  the  vice  in  the  Roman  Catholic  establishment  had  been 
successful,  but  the  attempt  to  rule  out  intolerance  and  bigotry  from 
the  churchly  organization  had  failed.  A  creed,  embodied  in  a  church 
possessing  supreme  authority,  was  still  ruling  in  the  Christian  system. 
The  supreme  purpose  for  the  life  of  any  individual  was  the  discovering 
of  the  will  of  God.  Good  works,  in  so  far  as  they  might  lead  one  to 
put  his  trust  in  them,  are  dangerous.  All  the  details  of  conduct  have 
been  settled  by  divine  command  and  outhned  in  the  holy  Book.  The 
debt  to  the  law  is  tremendous  and  man's  life  must  be  one  constant 
struggle  to  partake  in  the  pardon  offered  through  faith  in  its  atoning 
sacrifice.  The  one  end  of  human  conduct  for  the  Puritan  is  the  attain- 
ment of  righteousness  by  the  individual.  There  is  always  some  one 
conviction  or  purpose  which  is  dominant  in  human  consciousness,  which 
regulates  the  motives  in  action,  and  which  forms  the  center  of  interest 
in  the  religious  life.  Religious  thinking  has  always  been  dominated 
by  some  one  attitude  which  has  gripped  the  souls  of  men.  They  could 
not  die  for  several  causes  at  once.  Now  the  cause  for  which  the  Puritan 
lived  and  struggled  and  died  was  the  regulation  of  his  own  life  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  will  of  God,  the  attainment  of  such  individual  right- 
eousness as  alone  opened  up  to  him  salvation  throughout  eternity. 
The  exposition  of  the  details  of  the  Puritan  conception  and  of  the  manner 
in  which  social  ideals  were  suppressed  therein  will  occupy  the  remainder 
of  this  chapter. 

John  Calvin  had  been  trained  in  the  law.  The  code  of  belief  which 
Puritanism  took  over  from  him  conceives  the  relationship  between 
human  and  divine  in  essentially  legalistic  terms.  Godjs-iiiLiLll-powerfid 
lawj^er;  man  a  mere  puppet  in  Kis  hands.  Objectively,  the  implica- 
tions of  the  theory  assert  the  world  to  be  in  the  hands  of  God,  towards 
the  working  out  of  whose  plans  man  can  add  nothing  of  his  own.  Sub- 
jectively, the  effect  is  so  to  impress  the  consciousness  of  the  individual 
with  his  own  nothingness  or — still  worse  with  his  own  baseness — as  to 
prohibit  any  thought  or  even  presumptuous  wish  to  benefit  one's  fellows 
or  brighten  the  blackness  of  earthly  existence. 


10 

In  the  first  place,  then,  on  the  objective  side,  Puritanism  beUeved 
intensely  in  the  inner  depravity  of  man  since  the  fall.  The  original 
sinfulness  of  human  nature  had  plunged  society  justly  into  wrong-doing 
and  suffering  that  cannot  be  removed.  Man  is  vile,  prone  ever  to  sin 
and  ever  to  reap  the  results  of  sin.  "There  is  no  health  in  us."  Even 
as  late  as  the  revivals  of  1736  and  in  the  disturbing  sermons  of  Jonathan 
Edwards,  talk  was  common  about  "creatures  infinitely  sinful  and 
abominable,  wallowing  like  swine  in  the  mire  of  their  sins."^  The 
riches,  pleasures,  and  beauties  of  the  world  are  themselves  lures  of  the 
devil,  leading  deeper  and  deeper  into  sin,  as  one  becomes  a  slave  to  his 
own  appetites  and  passions.  There  is  no  conception  that  the  evils 
which  man  has  created,  man  can  remove.  On  the  contrary,  sin  and 
selfishness  are  inherent  in  all  fleshly  existence.  They  belong  to  the 
character  and  lot  of  man  by  every  right  of  inheritance.  "Do  we  then 
come  sinners  into  the  world?  Yes,  we  are  transgressors  from  the  womb 
and  go  astray  as  soon  as  we  are  born,  speaking  hes.''^  There  was  no 
problem  of  evil  for  the  Puritan.  Evil  is  here,  unalterably,  irrevocably 
here,  part  and  parcel  of  the  very  nature  of  man  as  decreed  by  a  merci- 
lessly just  judge  for  all  of  Adam's  race.  In  fact,  the  world,  in  the  belief 
of  many  of  the  theologians  of  that  day,  has  been  handed  over  to  the 
possession  of  demons.  Whatever  apparent  good  there  was  in  pre- 
Christian  civilization,  whatever  similar  to  the  Christian  sacraments 
and  virtues  there  is  in  heathen  religions,  all  of  this  has  been  devised 
by  clever  demons  as  counterfeits  of  truth.     The  world,  then,  is  hopeless. 

This  was  exactly  the  position  of  John  Robinson,  the  one  figure 
among  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  of  1620  who  was  of  sufficient  intellectual 
eminence  to  interest  the  historian.  He  speaks  as  follows:  "All  men  in 
Adam  have  sinned  (Rom.  5:12-15);  and  by  sin  lost  the  unage  of  God 
in  which  they  were  made;  so  as  the  law  is  impossible,  Rom.  S:3]  unto 
them  by  reason  of  the  flesh,  and  so  cannot  possibly  but  sin,  by  reason 
of  the  same  flesh  reigning  in  the  unregenerate  and  dweUing  in  all;  .  .  . 
and  that  this  so  comes  to  pass  by  God's  holy  decree,  and  work  of  provi- 
dence answerable,  not  forcing  evil  upon  anyone,  but  ordering  all  persons 
in  all  actions,  as  the  supreme  Governor  of  all;  and  that  the  wicked,  being 
left  of  God,  some,  destitute  of  the  outward  means,  the  gospel;  all  of  them, 
of  the  effectual  work  of  the  Spirit,  from  that  weak  flesh,  and  natural 
corruption,  daily  increased  in  them,  sin  both  necessarily  as  unable  to 
keep  the  law,  and  willingly,  as  having  in  themselves  the  beginning  and 

^  Riley,  I.  W.:  American  Philosophy,  p.  193. 
2  Bunyan:  Instruction  for  the  Ignorant. 


11 

cause  thereof,  the  blmdness  of  their  own  minds,  and  perverseness  of 
their  will  and  affections;  and  so  are  inexcusable  in  God's  sight.  "^  A 
just  God  has  condemned  mankind  and  who  would  presume  to  dispute 
omnipotence?  Let  none  presume  to  fight  against  the  cause  of  justice 
nor  hope  that  his  puny  powers  can  avail  for  good  in  the  face  of  God's 
contrary  plan. 

In  the  second  place,  Puritanism  in  the  objective  phase  of  its  legal 
aspect,  conceived  that  each  person's  misfortunes  were  more  or  less  the 
result  of  his  own  sin.  "How  are  men  punished  in  this  world  for  sin?" 
Bunyan  asks  in  his  Instruction  for  the  Ignorant.  "Many  ways,"  is 
the  answer,  "as  with  sickness,  losses,  crosses,  disappointments  and  the 
like;  sometimes  also  God  giveth  them  up  to  their  own  hearts'  lusts,  to 
blindness  of  mind  also  and  hardness  of  heart;  yea,  and  sometimes  to 
strong  delusions,  that  they  might  believe  Ues  and  be  damned."'^ 

Not  only,  then,  are  sin  and  suffering  integral  parts  of  the  human 
constitution,  found  in  some  degree  in  all,  but  the  woes  of  life  are  in 
general  equitably  distributed.  "In  the  house  of  the  righteous  is  much 
treasure;  but  in  the  revenues  of  the  wicked  is  trouble."^  Of  course, 
the  belief  was  not  worked  out  with  scientific  exactness,  for  he  whof 
runs  could  read  that  the  sins  of  the  fathers  are  visited  upon  their  inno- ' 
cent  offspring.  But  there  was  a  more  or  less  vague  feeling  that  God 
was  arranging  things  according  to  a  justice  past  man's  comprehension.  , 
"  May  God  not,  to  show  his  wrath,  suffer  with  much  long-suffering  all 
that  are  the  vessels  of  wrath,  by  their  own  voluntary  will,  to  fit  them- 
selves for  wrath  and  destruction?"  "To  believe  God  had  appointed 
the  evils  of  life  for  purposes  of  good;  to  try  to  trace  a  connection  real 
or  imagined  between  misfortune  and  sin  so  that  the  sufferings  of  the 
individual  could  be  interpreted  a  judgment  of  God';  to  exercise  a  sub- 
missive faith  amid  sorrows — these  were  the  virtues  which  accompanied 
the  idea  of  man's  helplessness  in  the  presence  of  adversities.  "^  Witches 
were  considered  to  be  inhabited  by  demons,  "accursed  of  God,"  due 
to  the  very  vileness  of  their  own  natures.  Such  a  conviction  could  not 
but  be  a  dampener  upon  sympathy  in  their  behalf.  Efforts  for  the 
relief  of  the  orphan  or  widow  must  needs  be  looked  upon  somewhat  in 
the  same  fashion  as  today  are  regarded  the  exertions  of  the  lawyer 
who  fights,  for  the  sake  of  his  fee,  to  alloW  ag  uilty  criminal  to  escape 

3  Robinson:  Works,  v.  1,  pp.  398  f. 

*  Bunyan:  Works,  ^.  289. 
"Proverbs,  15:8. 

•  Smith,  G.  B.:  Social  Idealism,  p.  116. 


12 

his  just  deserts.  If  one  is  himself  blessed  with  health  and  friends  and 
earthly  goods,  it  is  due  to  the  fact  that  God  considers  him  worthy  of 
them,  and  if  another  is  miserable,  it  is  due  to  his  own  unworthiness  in 
^the  sight  of  the  Almighty.  What  a  comfortable  feeling  for  the  rich! 
Would  not  the  blessed  of  God  be  betraying  his  trust  if  he  should  seek, 
contrary  to  the  Master's  evident  will,  to  divide  up  his  good  things 
among  those  for  whom  God  did  not  intend  them?  Such  is  plainly  the 
line  of  reasoning  which  the  Puritan  would  have  adduced,  had  he  been 
chided  by  a  modern  friend  of  humanity  for  his  selfishness,  but  mani- 
festly the  Puritan  clergyman  did  not  need  to  bring  forth  any  such  ex- 
hortations against  philanthropic  endeavor.  The  question  simply  held 
no  place  in  the  consciousness  of  the  day.  The  destiny  of  all  men  was 
conceived  to  be  in  God's  hands  and  there  were  no  proposals  to  undertake 
organized  social  effort  to  thwart  His  wishes  by  endeavoring  to  improve 
conditions  of  life  for  the  sinner. 

In  the  third  place,  we  find  a  conception,  which  to  modern  thought 
sounds  inconsistent  with  the  previous  theory  that  the  sufferings  of 
men  are  requitals  for  their  own  wilful  wrong-doing — namely  the  belief 
in  predestination.  The  immutable  decree  of  God  has  assigned  some 
men  to  eternal  salvation  and  others  to  eternal  damnation.  That  is, 
some  have  not  been  elected,  and  they,  sinful  and  a  curse  to  their  fellows, 
must  die  in  their  own  misery.  In  view  of  the  persecution  which  he 
himself  had  suffered,  it  seemed  clear  to  Bunyan  that,  although  even  the 
righteous  must  be  conceived  as  meeting  afflictions,  yet  as  elect  they 
must  ultimately  triumph  while  the  reprobate  die  in  their  sins.'  His 
sense  of  the  justice  of  this  divine  plan  is  "  God  cannot  be  justly  charged 
with  partiaUty  or  severity,  in  bestowing  his  grace  upon  some,  while  he 

'  "They  (the  elect)  conquer  when  they  thus  do  fall 

They  kill  when  they  do  die; 
They  overcome  then  most  of  all, 

And  get  the  victory. 

And  let  us  count  those  things  the  best, 

That  best  will  prove  at  last; 
And  count  such  men  the  only  blest, 

That  do  such  things  hold  fast. 

And  what  though  they  us  dear  do  cost, 

Yet  let  us  buy  them  so; 
We  shall  not  count  our  labor  lost 

When  we  see  others'  woe."     Works,  p.  109. 


13 

witholds  it  from  others;  herein  he  doth  what  he  pleases  with  his  own: 
so  that  the  reprobates,  not  having  the  divine  image  reinstamped  upon 
them  by  the  regenerating  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  are  consequently 
disapproved  of  God  and  perish  in  their  sins."^  The  decree  of  election 
and  reprobation  went  forth  before  the  world  began.  "This  was  the 
best  and  fittest  way  for  the  decrees  to  receive  sound  bottom,  even  for 
God  both  to  choose  and  refuse,  before  the  creature  hath  done  good 
or  evil."  Even  the  holiest  of  the  world  could  not  through  his  own 
effort  have  so  maintained  his  faith  as  to  have  earned  election.  But 
God,  in  an  unchangeable  act  of  grace,  made  choice  before  the  creature's 
birth.  "Thus  the  foundation  of  God  standeth  sure,  having  this  seal, 
the  Lord  knoweth  who  are  his.  "^ 

The  effect  of  this  belief  in  predestination  in  dwarfing  and  stultifying 
all  that  was  noblest  in  human  character  can  hardly  be  overestimated. 
It  gave  no  hope  to  those  that  needed  hope;  it  put  no  love  into  the  breasts 
of  those  who  felt  "assured  of  salvation."  It  was  definitely  asserted 
that  no  human  effort  could  do  aught  to  save  the  "unsaved."  A  great 
gulf  was  fixed  between  the  elected  and  the  accursed  of  God.  In  no 
way  could  one  of  God's  unfortunate  children  hope  by  any  amount  of 
effort  or  devotion  or  sacrifice  to  enter  into  the  joy  of  the  Lord.  Thomas 
Cobbett  (ministry  in  Lynn,  Mass.,  from  1637  to  1657)  cannot  deny  the 
duty  of  the  unregenerate  to  pray,  and  tries  to  find  reasons  for  their 
prayer,  though  he  asserts  they  are  wicked  in  praying.  Suffice  it  to  say 
that  up  to  the  time  of  Increase  Mather  (President  of  Harvard  College 
1684-1701)  there  was  no  noteworthy  preacher  who  was  able  to  triumph 
over  his  belief  in  the  foreordained  damnation  of  sinners  sufficiently  to 
lead  him  to  adopt  evangeUstic  methods  in  seeking  to  lay  hold  of  "the 
lost. "  He  trampled  the  doctrine  of  inability  under  foot  and  preached  ^ 
sermons  burning  with  passion  and  love  for  human  souls.  But  he  is 
an  example  of  a  great  and  generous  nature  whose  sympathies  could 
not  be  hardened  amidst  the  aristocratic  callousness  common  to  "the 
elect." 

Secure  in  the  conviction  that  God  and  not  man  could  remedy  human 
ills,  those  divinely  elected  were  led  in  logical  consistency  to  sit  with 
folded  hands,  watching  the  universal  machinery  run  its  course.  The 
role  of  the  chosen  was  merely  to  rest  blissfully  in  their  own  good  for- 
tune, knowing  it  to  be  beyond  their  power  to  be  of  service  to  the  damned 
about  them.    Even  benevolence  was  logically  impossible  for  it  would 

*Bunyan:  Works,  p.  111. 
^Bunyan:  Works,  p.  112. 


14 

imply  that  the  agent  aimed  to  be  more  generous  and  just  than  the  Deity. 
Love,  Hkewise,  must  needs  be  stifled,  for  should  one  love  the  wicked, 
the  very  children  of  the  Evil  One?  Such  were  the  manifest  impHcations 
of  the  doctrine  of  predestination,  which,  it  must  be  remembered,  was 
dropped  from  the  Calvinistic  creed  of  Presbyterianism  only  within  the 
memory  of  our  own  generation.  It  must  be  admitted  that  most  of  the 
upholders  of  the  theory  of  election  have  claimed  it  wholly  to  mean 
fore-knowledge  upon  the  part  of  God  and  have  asserted— whether 
inconsistently  or  not — the  freedom  of  thfe  individual  to  choose  between 
right  and  wrong.  They  have  also  insisted  that  manifestly  no  person 
was  "chosen  of  God"  who  did  not  give  testimony  to  his  election  by 
the  purity  and  unselfishness  of  his  life.  But  the  fact  remains  that  in 
Puritan  times  the  doctrine  of  predestination  was  conceived  in  much 
cruder  terms,  and  that  it  was  a  curse  to  those  who  felt  convicted  of 
sin  and  a  blaster  to  the  gentler  virtues  of  sympathy  and  love  in  the 
hearts  of  the  self-assured  elect. 

Another  point  to  be  noted  in  connection  with  this  doctrine  of  pre- 
destination is  that  it  led  the  believer  to  think  in  terms  of  God's  sover- 
eignty rather  than  of  man's  conduct.  He  sought  not  to  discover  the 
evil  and  the  good  which  men  were  doing,  but  only  to  find  out  what 
God  had  willed.  Today  we  commonly  brand  men  as  good  or  bad,  clean 
or  crooked,  honest  or  "grafting,"  and  if  we  use  the  categories  righteous 
and  wicked,  we  do  it  largely  with  reference  to  their  conduct.  Calvinism, 
thinking  in  terms  of  divine  sovereignty  divided  men  into  forgiven  rebels 
and  impenitent  rebels.  IJThis  current  method  of  classification  gave  rise^ 
to  a  somewhat  patriotically  disapproving  attitude  toward  God's  enemies^ 
In  so  far  attention  was  directed  not  so  much  toward  regenerating  the 
wicked  as  toward  shunning  or  annihilating  them. 

In  their  subjective  effect  upon  the  disposition  of  the  individual, 
the  legal  teachings  of  Calvinism  concerning  human  obHgation  to  the 
divine  law  were  very  marked.  Any  person  of  a  keenly  sensitive  nature 
was  fearfully  oppressed  by  the  sense  of  the  depravity  and  worthlessness 
of  his  own  being  before  the  subUme  and  autocratic  grandeur  of  the 
Almighty.  (Especially  "when  inability  was  preached  to  men  who  were 
not  conscious  that  they  were  the  elect,  when  passive  waiting  for  the 
gracious  deliverance  of  God  was  inculcated  upon  men  whom  the  tide 
of  events  no  longer  forced  to  activity  in  spite  of  themselves  and  of  their 
theories,  it  produced  sluggishness,  apathy,  seK-distrust,  despair.^'^'^ 
Excellently  illustrative  of  the  predominantly  depressing  and  gloomy 

"  Foster:  History  of  New  England  Theology,  p.  27. 


15 

character  of  the  discourses  of  the  period  are  the  sermons  of  Thomas 
Hooker  (minister  in  Hartford  1637-47)  such  as  The  Soul's  Humiliation 
(1638),  The  Unbeliever's  Preparing  for  Christ  (1638),  and  The  Poor 
Dying  Christian  Drawn  to  Christ  (1643).  "There  were  not  lacking 
many  appeals  which  were  adapted  to  stir  the  conscience,  produce  repen- 
tance and  call  out  faith;  for  when  men  are  moved  by  the  great  forces 
of  the  soul,  and  the  truths  of  the  gospel  are  presented  to  them,  they 
will  respond  in  the  natural  manner,  regardless  of  the  theories  which 
they  may  be  taught  and  which  at  other  times  may  paralyze  their  action. 
But  when  every  allowance  has  been  made  for  the  brighter  and  better 
side  of  the  early  preaching,  it  still  remains  that  the  general  impression 
of  the  pulpit  was  that  the  sinner  is  dead,  helpless,  cannot  be  interested 
in  divine  things,  and  has  nothing  to  do  but  to  wait  for  God.  "^^  Many 
of  the  writings  and  sermons  of  Puritan  days  sound  to  us  like  the  out- 
bursts of  melanchoHc  dyspeptics.  The  pursuit  of  science  requires 
enthusiasm,  courage,  faith  in  its  own  methods  and  hope  of  success  in 
adding  to  human  knowledge  the  solution  of  some  problem  today  un- 
solved. Should  we  say  that  in  Puritan  language  this  would  be  wresting 
from  God  something  he  had  not  yet  given  to  man,  that  it  is  taking 
the  control  of  natural  forces  out  of  God's  hands  into  man's?  In  any 
event,  the  common  Calvinistic^^opinion,  offered  no  such  hope  to  abe- 
nighted  human.  It  felt  that  only  a  sense  of  absolute  incapacity  and.- 
wretchedness  would  lead  the  individual  to  throw  himself  upon  the 
Lord,  to  despise  this  world  and  to  throw  off  the  bondage  of  sin.  It 
believed  man  could  escape  from  his  abject  vileness  only  by  a  miracle  of 
grace  within  him.^We  find,  accordingly,  in  Puritan  thinking  much 
dejection  and  a  tendency  to  sit  in  misery  and  shame  bemoaning  the 
wretched  fate  of  men^^^nly  those  significant  and  dominant  personali- 
ties, whose  natural  energy  led  them  out  to  taste  of  the  joy  of  achievement 
and  the  satisfaction  that  comes  from  the  exercise  of  bodily  strength 
and  mental  powers,  triumphed  over  the  prevalent  depression. 

Secondly,  in  the  subjective  aspect,  in  addition  to  the  individual's 
distrust  in  his  own  powers  and  gloom  over  the  necessary  wretchedness 
of  mankind,  the  conviction  is  impressed  upon  him  in  the  Calvinistic 
system  that  his  hands  are  only  too  full  if  he  is  to  rid  his  own  soul  of  sin. 

How  must  I  worship  God?  the  learner  asks  in  Bunyan's  catechism. 
And  the  answer  simply  is:  Thou  must  confess  thy  transgressions  unto 
the  Lord  .  .  .  when  we  confess  sin,  tears,  shame  and  brokenness  of 

"  Foster:  History  New  England  Theology,  p.  28. 


16 

heart  become  us.  Tremble  at  the  word  of  God,  tremble  at  every  judg- 
ment, lest  it  overtake  thee;  tremble  at  every  promise  lest  thou  shouldst 
miss  thereof:  ''For  (saith  God)  to  this  man  will  I  look,  even  to  him 
that  is  poor  and  of  a  contrite  spirit,  and  that  trembles  at  my  word. " 
Isa.  66:2.12  Christian  in  Pilgrim's  Progress  turns  neither  to  the  right 
nor  the  left — he  gives  no  alms  and  scarcely  helps  another  soul  along 
the  straight  and  narrow  path.  He  is  so  convinced  of  the  dangers  on 
every  hand,  and  of  the  proneness  of  his  own  nature  to  sin,  that  he  dares 
not  tarry  a  moment  in  seeking  his  own  salvation.  In  two  fundamental 
respects,  therefore,  by  his  own  inner  dejection  and  lack  of  enthusiasm, 
and  by  his  sense  of  the  immensity  of  the  obstacles  to  his  own  salvation, 
an  individual  wh  might  otherwise  have  been  stirred  to  serve  and 
encourage  his  fellow-men  was  restricted  to  the  narrow  strife  after  self- 
righteousness. 

In  addition  to  its  legal  aspect,  Calvinism  presents  another  strikmg 
characteristic  in  its  emphasis  upon  other  worldliness.  As  aheady  dis- 
cussed, human  existence  had  been  cursed  of  God.  Even  the  elect  are 
subject  to  misfortunes  and  miseries  attendant  upon  existence  in  this 
vile  world  under  the  influence  of  the  appetites  of  carnal  flesh.  What, 
then,  is  the  purpose  and  meaning  of  this  temporal  existence?  Its  whole 
value  must  be  measured  in  terms  of  eternal  life,  beside  which  the  days 
on  this  planet  are  but  as  grains  of  sand  on  the  shores  of  the  sea.  For 
many  a  Puritan  mind,  the  overwhelmingness  of  the  concept  of  eternity 
simply  held  the  whole  of  consciousness  in  its  grip  and  paralyzed  activity 
in  human  affairs.  The  one  purpose  of  life  became  to  gain  salvation  and 
escape  the  frightfulness  of  a  torture  that  knew  no  end.  To  gain  the 
one  and  flee  the  other,  no  price  was  too  great  to  pay.  Pleasure  in 
this  world  counted  for  nothing  if  it  interfered  with  the  hope  of  the  future. 
Even  home,  family,  and  friends  must  be  renounced  if  they  bind  the 
loving  father  or  son  to  this  earth.  Witness  how  Bunyan  abandoned 
this  world  to  the  enemy: 

"I  must  first  pass  a  sentence  of  death  upon  everything  that  can 
properly  be  called  a  thing  of  this  life,  even  to  reckon  myself,  my  wife, 
my  children,  my  health,  my  enjoyments,  and  all,  as  dead  to  me,  and 
myself  as  dead  to  them;  ...  as  touching  this  world,  to  count  the  grave 
my  house,  to  make  my  bed  in  darkness,  and  to  say  to  corruption,  Thou 
art  my  father,  and  to  the  worm.  Thou  art  my  mother  and  sister.  .  .  . 
The  parting  with  my  wife  and  my  poor  children  hath  often  been  to  me 
as  the  pulling  of  my  flesh  from  my  bones,  especially  my  poor  bhnd 

"  Bunyan;  "instruction  for  the  Ignorant,"  Works,  p.  293. 


17 

child  who  lay  nearer  my  heart  than  all  I  had  besides.  ...  But  yet 
I  must  venture  you  all  with  God,  though  it  goeth  to  the  quick  to  leave 
you. " 

The  other-wordly  notion  served  in  a  surprising  manner  to  stifle  the 
ordinary  human  affections  and  sympathies.  The  Puritans  became  noted 
for  their  sternessT  and  severity.  Witches  were  beaten  mercilessly  or 
burned,  slight  offenses  punished  with  cruel  tortures  of  the  pillory  or 
whipping-post — partly  at  least,  from  the  conviction  that  by  such  means 
the  victim  might  have  the  error  of  his  ways  impressed  upon  him.  His 
agonies  in  this  world  counted  for  nothing  if  only  he  could  be  side-tracked 
on  to  the  road  which  would  lead  him  to  escape  the  agony  that  would 
endure  through  all  time.  There  was  no  pity  for  the  sinner.  The 
sinner  incarnated  evil  upon  the  earth  and  the  work  of  the  righteous  was 
to  wipe  evil  from  the  earth,  to  pursue  it  to  the  utmost  with  inexorable 
hate.  All  human  action,  then,  was  to  be  weighed  according  to  its  value 
in  the  sight  of  eternity.  The  gentler  virtues,  such  as  loye,  grace,  and 
aesthetic  appreciation  were  rather,  despised  lest  they  should  lead  a 
person  to  forget  even  momentarily  the  placation  of  a  deity  who  knew 
no  pity.  In  so  far  as  the  making  of  this  world  sanitary  and  beautiful 
served  to  render  it  an  attractive  place  to  live  in,  and  to  fill  the  heart 
with  the  joy  of  life,  societies  for  civic  improvement  were  really  dangerous?- 
As  for  measures  for  social  relief — what  could  be  done  comparable  to 
exhortation  and  preaching,  in  order  that  souls  might  be  saved?  There 
is  where  one's  money  and  time  should  be  expended — there  lay  the 
one  and  only  purpose  of  missions,  inasmuch  as  the  soul-rescuing  was 
so  boundless  and  the  funds  and  workers  so  limited.  To  be  sure,  this 
sketch  is  an  exaggerated  picture  of  the  hardening  influences  which  the 
sense  of  eternity  pressed  upon  Puritan  hearts,  exaggerated  from  the 
point  of  view  of  individual  psychology.  In  specific  cases,  the  instincts 
and  desires  of  human  nature  were  bound  to  assert  themselves,  parti- 
cularly where  the  abandonment  of  pleasures  and  the  glorification  of 
thrift  led  to  stable  finances.  Many  of  the  Puritans  became  well-to-do 
and  with  the  accumulation  of  the  material  means  for  the  purchase  of 
the  comforts  of  life,  their  renunciation  became  ever  more  difficult. 
Also  the  instinct  of  paternal  love  could  not  be  wholly  suppressed,  often 
reaching  out  beyond  one's  own  family  toward  homeless  and  unprotected 
waifs.  But,  in  general,  in  all  of  the  ways  suggested,  Puritan  ethics 
tended  to  keep  the  whole  thought  upon  the  heavenly  life  and  to  prevent 
effort  for  the  physical  and  social  welfare  of  men,  lest  their  souls  be  neg- 
lected. ^ 


18 

"  to  hear  the  approving  voice  of  God  at  the  final  judgment,  rather  than 
to  rejoice  in  the  possibility  of  better  moral  conditions  on  this  earth 
has  been  the  supreme  motive  for  right  living  proclaimed  by  the  church. 
A  hymn  book  shows  how  largely  our  Christian  devotion  has  been  stim- 
ulated by  visions  of  the  heavenly  Jesus,  the  glory  of  which  we  may 
enjoy  only  after  death  has  removed  us  from  the  earth.  "^^ 

In  addition  to  its  legal  aspect  and  essential  other- worldliness,  Puritan 
religious  thought  reveals  a  third  important  variation  from  modern 
ideas  in  its  emphasis  upon  intellectual  belief.  Bunyan  sums  up  the 
worship  of  God  into  these  four  elements:  confession  of  sin,  faith  in 
Jesus  Christ,  prayer  and  self-denial.  Note  the  absence  of  any  reference 
to  purity  of  life  or  love  for  one's  fellows.  He  says  "Without  faith  it 
is  impossible  to  please  Him;  for  he  that  cometh  to  God  must  believe 
that  He  is  and  that  He  is  a  rewarder  of  them  that  dihgently  seek  Him. 
There  is  no  other  name  given  under  Heaven  among  men  whereby  we 
must  be  saved;  and  therefore  he  that  helieveth  not  shall  be  damned. 
There  is  no  righteousness  in  this  world  that  can  save  the  sinner.  "^^  To- 
day the  popular  demand  is  that  religion  must  be  judged  by  its  fruits, 
that  the  man  who  professes  himself  a  follower  of  Christ  must  live  a 
life  like  his  Master's  in  the  doing  of  good  toward  mankind.  The  note 
sounded  from  our  pulpits  does  not  call  for  pious  professions  and  prayers, 
but  for  virtuous  action.  Men  say:  "I  care  not  what  a  man  believes, 
but  only  what  he  does. "  Quite  the  contrary  in  Puritan  days,  men  were 
warned  that  the  supreme  need  of  man  was  not  good  works  but  belief 
in  God.  In  the  fore-front  of  the  religious  consciousness  and  in  the 
center  of  public  interest  were  the  controversies  over  the  conflicting 
views  in  regard  to  the  fundamentals  of  Christian  theology.  This  is 
a  necessary  stage  in  the  evolution  of  any  system  of  thought  or  organi- 
zation in  society.  So  the  tenets  of  Mormonism  or  Christian  Science  had 
to  go  first  through  a  stage  where  they  were  built  up  on  a  strong  logical 
basis,  by  being  tried  in  the  melting-pot  of  public  opinion.  So  the  So- 
cialism of  H.  G.  Wells  and  of  the  Belgian  cooperative  societies,  as  worked 
out  in  actual  practice,  has  discarded  much  of  the  older  theory  and 
provides  for  home  Hfe,  personal  property  and  unequal  salaries,  paid 
according  to  abiHty  and  experience.  But  when  Socialism  first  started 
its  fight  against  the  existing  economic  order,  it  took  the  form  of  a  Marxian 
whirlwind  philosophy.  The  philosophical  justification  of  the  ideas, 
"the  Apologetics,"  have  first  to  be  worked  out,  before  any  active  and 

"  Smith,  G.  B.:  Social  Idealism,  p.  104. 

**  A  group  of  Biblical  quotations  cited  by  Bunyan  in  his  Instruction  for  the  Ignorant 
The  italics  are  mine. 


19 

enthusiastic  propaganda  can  regularly  begin.  When  the  churches 
were  separating  from  CathoUcism  and  pointing  out  their  points  of 
dissension  from  her,  it  was  natural  there  should  be  emphasis  upon  the 
intellectual.  Much  pleasure  was  taken  in  formulating  and  pondering 
over  the  theoretical  bases  which  formed  the  grounds  for  secession  from 
the  older  church.  Not  only  that,  but  the  heritage  of  the  Middle  Ages 
was  a  profound  interest  in  theological  disputation.  Unlike  Joseph 
Smith  or  Mary  Baker  Eddy,  Christ  had  not  left  His  doctrines  explicitly 
set  forth  in  written  form.  Hence,  beginning  with  His  own  disciples, 
there  had  always  been  controversy  regarding  the  cardinal  points  of 
His  teachings.  At  the  time  of  the  Puritan  church,  the  theologians 
were  pretty  well  agreed  in  their  interpretations,  but  the  interest  in 
behef  was  still  paramount.  Within  certain  limits,  dogmatism  could 
not  be  questioned  without  suffering  the  vengeance  of  the  law.  It 
had  to  be  accepted  ready-made,  and  thus  the  presence  of  such  a  body 
of  unquestionable  truth  acted  as  a  narcotic  upon  freedom  of  thought. 
"Theology  was  gradually  strangling  life.  ...  The  system  proved 
itself  to  be  non-ethical,  .  .  .  making  hohness  a  state  entered  into  .  .  . 
by  an  experience  essentially  mysterious — faith — and  consisting  in  an 
attitude  of  the  soul  and  not  in  its  activities.  "^^  The  soul's  salvation 
was  considered  to  be  wholly  this  matter  of  intellectual  belief.  Now,  in 
its  ultimate  aspect,  belief  is  always  an  individual  matter — in  the  end, 
each  person  must  save  himself,  no  other  can  "believe"  in  the  stead  of 
the  sinner.  Here  also  was  a  fact  which  allowed  the  Puritan  Christian 
to  sit  comfortably  by  and  watch  his  neighbor  grow  up  environed  by 
evil  and  shame.  It  was  his  neighbor's  belief  which  was  far  more  impor- 
tant than  any  danger  he  might  be  in  unnecessary  death.  Belief,  "the 
man  higher  up"  could  complacently  feel,  the  "under-dog"  must  alter 
for  himself.  The  stress  on  doctrine  had,  therefore,  confined  the  in- 
dividual ultimately  to  himseK,  but,  more  than  that,  in  its  broader  as- 
pects, dogmatic  discussion  was  distinctly  anti-social.  So  long  as  various 
sects  differed  on  some  point  of  theory,  they  could  not  unite  in  the  same 
church  worship,  and  hence  the  need  of  Lutherans  and  Presbyterians, 
of  Baptists  and  Methodists.  Not  until  men  could  "boil  down"  their 
doctrinal  necessities  to  a  minimum,  or  until  they  could  unite  on  the 
basis  of  a  certain  course  of  conduct  declared  to  be  Christian,  did  any 
possibility  of  church  union  arise.  In  the  seventeenth  century,  the 
bitterness  of  intolerance  between  sects  was  still  rampant.     Puritanism, 

"  Foster:  Hist.  New  England  Theology,  p.  544. 


20 

as  intensely  theological  and  doctrinal,  was  a  characteristic  product  of 
the  century. 

The  fourth  chief  phase  of  Puritan  ethical  thinking  which  encouraged 
strife  after  personal  salvation  was  the  stress  laid  upon  membership 
within  an  exclusive  group.  All  the  centuries  of  belief  in  sacramental 
magic  lent  the  weight  of  their  sanction  to  the  assertion  that  the  only 
approach  to  God  was  through  the  church.  The  unbeliever  might  bring 
upon  himself  the  gratitude  of  the  oppressed  by  his  good  works,  but 
really  he  was  a  hindrance  and  not  an  aid  to  the  near-approach  of  the 
kingdom  of  righteousness.  Such  beneficence  was  prompted  by  the 
devil  in  order  to  turn  men's  minds  away  from  the  prime  need  of  soul 
salvation.  The  only  really  hallowed  activities  which  made  for  ultimate 
good  were  those  carried  on  by  men  guided  by  the  spirit  of  Christ,  as 
evinced  by  their  profession  of  faith  in  him.  The  Protestants,  in  their 
revolt  from  Catholicism  and  then,  in  their  turn,  the  Dissenters  in  their 
withdrawal  from  the  Church  of  England,  found  themselves  seeking 
strength  in  union,  and  necessarily,  in  the  very  struggle  for  existence, 
building  up  a  church  which  claimed  for  itself  an  exclusive  monopoly  of 
the  sources  of  salvation.  Even  the  Puritan  state  as  founded  in  Massa- 
chusetts, though  thanking  God  for  His  mercy  in  providing  a  land  where 
He  might  be  worshipped  in  accord  with  conviction,  yet  excluded  from  a 
share  in  its  government  all  those  not  members  of  its  own  church  group. 

There  was  fear  lest  the  hand  of  the  wicked  would  create  conditions 
of  corruption  and  vice  to  surround  the  holy.  In  the  words  of  Cotton 
Mather:  "It  was  feared  that,  if  all  such  as  had  not  yet  exposed  them- 
selves by  censurable  scandals  should  be  admitted  unto  all  the  privileges 
in  our  churches,  a  worldly  part  of  mankind  might,  before  we  are  aware, 
carry  all  things  into  such  a  course  of  proceeding,  as  would  be  very  dis- 
agreeable unto  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  "^^  However  honest  or  generous 
the  motives  of  a  Jew  or  of  a  Baptist  or  of  an  atheist  might  appear,  yet 
they  were  popularly  ascribed  in  their  inner  essence  to  be  due  to  pride 
or  wanton  wickedness.  Religion  to  the  Puritan  mind,  in  accordance 
with  the  whole  course  of  traditional  Christianity,  was  conceived  not  as 
a  force  which  was  to  make  this  earth  God's  habitation,  but  rather  only 
as  a  means  of  saving  one  out  of  an  evil  environment  into  membership 
in  a  heavenly  kingdom  in  the  Great  Beyond.  Only  those  in  the  church 
could  expect  to  stand  at  the  right  hand  of  God  on  the  Great  Day  of 
Judgment. 

i«  Magnolia  II,  p.  277  ff . 


21 

A  final  factor  in  men's  thinking  which  prevented  the  growth  during 
the  seventeenth  century  of  a  religious  purpose  toward  social  better- 
ment was  the  prevalent  belief  that  the  revelation  of  God  to  men  was 
all-comprehensive  and  final  as  presented  in  the  Scriptures.  In  this 
conception,  study  of  the  natural  laws  governing  the  conditions  of  Hfe 
today  is  quite  without  avail  compared  with  an  understanding  of  the 
witness  of  a  divine  prophet  given  two  thousand  years  ago.  The  Mil- 
lenium would  be  here  were  all  men  to  obey  the  ten  commandments. 
No  scientific  study  could  legally  be  instituted  if  all  men  were  convinced 
that  the  only  knowledge  the  world  really  needed  was  a  perfect  under- 
standing of  the  Gospel.  The  one  supreme  need  of  men  was  declared  to 
be  spiritual  wisdom,  an  illumining  of  the  hearts  of  men  with  divine 
Hght.  Watch  and  pray,  therefore,  and  search  the  Holy  Scriptures — 
in  this  brief  injunction  was  included  the  full  guide  for  earthly  existence. 
Herein  was  no  encouragement  to  the  nature  lover  that  he  seek  to  find 
God  in  the  Universe,  nor  to  the  lover  of  mankind  that  he  seek  to  serve 
God  through  ennobling  and  refining  human  existence.  It  was  not 
allowed  that  economic  theory  or  the  study  of  sociology  could  teach  to 
man  principles  for  his  betterment  unknown  to  the  Jewish  writers  of 
Palestine  in  the  first  century.  All  truth  had  been  told — your  work  and 
mine  was  solely  to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  the  prophet  of  Nazareth. 
The  beUef  in  the  finality  of  revelation,  in  the  helplessness  of  man  to  add 
greater  knowledge  of  God  to  that  revealed  in  the  Bible  was  in  its  logical 
implications  a  powerful  deadener  of  human  activity  in  other  channels 
than  in  a  pietistic  worship  of  God.  It  sent  the  pilgrim  to  his  study  to 
ponder  on  the  inspired  words  and  left  no  room  for  the  suggestion  that 
he  might  learn  of  God  also  through  love  and  service.  Once  more  a 
cardinal  principle  glorified  not  works,  but  faith.  All  that  man  really 
needed  to  know  was  told  in  full  in  revelation;  all  that  he  might  discover 
by  the  scientific  method  of  trial  and  error  concerning  the  virtuous  life 
had  been  detailed  for  him  by  a  divine  teacher.  Why  err,  therefore? — 
search  ye  the  word  of  God.  The  Puritan,  through  his  lack  of  knowledge 
of  the  history  of  Christian  thought,  could  not  know  that  many  of  his 
ideas  were  not  explicitly  affirmed  in  those  very  Scriptures,  and  that 
many  of  his  fundamental  tenets  had  been  formulated  by  great  religious 
teachers  living  since  the  time  of  Christ.  These  men  had  seen  visions 
of  new  truth,  by  virtue  of  their  own  meditation,  by  their  activity  in 
Christian  service,  or  by  communion  with  the  spirit  of  God  directly 
in  the  human  heart.  The  belief,  then,  in  the  infaUibiUty  of  the  Bible 
tended  to  obscure  the  virtues  of  social  activity  and  to  lead  the  individual 


22 

to  seek  his  own  salvation  by  getting  hold  of  a  panacea,  certain  and 
perfect,  for  all  the  ills  of  flesh. 

In  addition  to  the  factors  of  intellectual  belief  which  determined 
the  Puritan  individualistic  ethics,  there  must  be  mentioned  as  con- 
tributing elements  two  very  practical  conditions  in  the  constitution 
of  society.  In  the  first  place,  it  must  be  noted  that  society  in  itself 
was  much  more  conservative  and  less  plastic  than  at  the  present  day. 
The  nations  were  still  insecure  in  the  determination  of  their  boundaries 
and  in  the  establishment  of  the  national  consciousness  of  each  as  a 
member  of  the  world-family.  Hence,  authority  regarded  its  own  power 
as  necessarily  arbitrary,  and  the  people  respected  its  sway  as  essential 
to  the  preservation  of  the  father-land.  There  was  a  certain  sacredness 
attached  to  existing  institutions.  The  lack  of  a  general  education 
among  the  masses  tended  to  produce  awe  and  fear  and  subservience 
which  accompany  the  sense  of  impotence  and  the  recognition  of  the 
superior  quahties  and  abilities  of  a  privileged  class.  The  medieval 
trust  in  an  omnipotent  God  who  might  interfere  with  vengeance  upon 
the  wicked  at  any  moment  tended  to  produce  the  habit  of  humility 
as  opposed  to  self-assertion.  This  spirit  manifested  itself,  also,  in  some 
degree  in  a  slavish  submission  toward  the  aristocracy  who,  by  virtue 
of  the  possession  of  property  and  shrewdness  of  intellect,  were  able  to 
estabhsh  themselves  as  distributors  of  pains  and  pleasures.  Institutions 
tended  to  remain  fixed.  The  privileged  classes  were  well  satisfied  with 
their  own  advantages;  the  lower  classes  through  awe  of  superior  power 
were  well-satisfied  in  their  own  submission.  Even  though  some  mag- 
nanimous statesman  might  see  an  abuse  in  need  of  remedying,  he  found 
all  the  inertia  of  an  estabhshed  order  standing  in  the  way.  The  machin- 
ery through  which  reform  legislation  might  carry  itself  against  the 
forces  of  conservatism  had  not  yet  been  invented.  The  very  impos- 
sibility of  carrying  bills  altering  the  status  of  social  classes  prevented 
their  initiation. 

Secondly,  all  improvements  had  to  come  from  above,  and  charity 
never  possesses  the  dynamic  effectiveness  which  righteous  indignation 
can  command  for  itseK.  In  other  words,  the  people  could  not  speak 
for  themselves.  The  lower  classes,  for  whose  sake  reforms  are  mainly 
necessary,  had  little  or  no  voice  in  the  government.  Democracy  had 
scarcely  begun  its  work.  Two-thirds  of  the  House  of  Commons  were 
appointed  by  peers  or  other  influential  persons.  Conceive,  if  you  can, 
what  effect  upon  the  legislation  of  today  would  be  produced  if  all  of  the 
influence  of  public  opinion  were  withdrawn.     Today  public  sentiment 


23 

is  the  avenger  which  corruption  dreads;  it  is  the  backing  force  which 
gives  to  a  legislator  the  courage  to  fight  corporate  greed  and  to  plead 
for  health  and  labor  measures  or  the  initiative  and  referendum.  Con- 
sider, therefore,  the  situation  where  the  poor  and  laboring  classes  were 
both  ignorant  and  unenfranchised,  and  there  is  Uttle  wonder  that  their 
needs  were  scarcely  recognized  in  the  social  whole.  The  welfare  of 
the  nation  was  considered  to  lie  not  in  the  interests  of  those  who  could 
not  speak  for  themselves,  not  in  the  interests  of  the  sheep  who  knew 
only  how  to  obey,  but  rather  in  the  good  of  the  shepherds,  the  managers 
of  political  and  industrial  affairs.  In  so  far,  then,  the  ethics  of  Puritan 
days  did  not  look  toward  the  good  of  society  as  we  think  of  it,  but  rather 
toward  the  good  of  individuals  of  distinction.  In  the  religion  of  Puri- 
tanism, therefore,  as  it  laid  hold  upon  the  middle  classes,  there  was 
Httle  of  the  democratic  ideal.  It  was  influenced  by  no  voice  of  public 
opinion,  rising  from  the  midst  of  oppressed  classes  and  declaring  that 
any  who  professed  belief  in  God  must  stand  for  equal  justice  to  all  men. 
The  third  and  last  point  to  be  noted  in  this  list  of  practical  conditions 
which  inhibited  attention  toward  the  welfare  of  humanity  in  the  large 
was  the  complete  absence  of  knowledge  of  the  technique  of  social  reform. 
The  habit  of  looking  over  society  from  the  scientific  point  of  view  had 
simply  not  been  formed.  There  was  no  group  of  thousands  of  news- 
papers and  hundreds  of  magazines  constantly  surveying  the  field,  and 
seeking  to  gain  public  favor  by  exposing  abuses  and  evils  in  official 
or  private  life.  No  rewards  of  honor  and  bonuses  were  offered  to  those 
who  could  suggest  solutions  and  work  out  remedies  by  experiment 
and  observation.  The  amelioration  of  conditions  of  human  life  has 
itself  been  worked  out  in  part  by  the  aid  of  the  slow  growth  of  the  science 
of  sociology,  a  science  quite  unknown  in  the  days  of  the  individualistic 
ethics  of  Puritanism.  Without  a  careful  analysis  and  discovery  of 
social  diseases  in  need  of  cure,  and  without  experimental  study  of  the 
medicines  and  operations  which  would  effect  remedies  desired,  it  was 
no  wonder  that  a  sort  of  fatahstic  attitude  was  prevalent,  or  a  feeling 
that  each  must  work  out  his  own  salvation.  Society  had  not  come  to 
a  consciousness  of  itself.  It  did  not  see  that  improvement  of  the  whole 
would  make  vastly  easier  the  salvation  of  the  individual  parts. 


CHAPTER  III 

The  Rise  or  Commerce  and  Industry — ^The  Settlement  of  the 

New  World 

The  account  which  has  been  given  of  the  thought  and  Hfe  of  Puritan 
days  has  sought  to  outline  only  those  tendencies  which  were  responsible 
for  the  fact  that  the  characteristic  note  of  the  popular  ethics  of  the 
time  was  a  striving  after  the  individual's  own  well-being.  The  picture 
has  been,  of  course,  one-sided.  Nevertheless,  it  is  true  that  the  great 
stress  and  pull  of  all  conditions  of  the  day — ecclesiastical,  poUtical, 
social, — were  decidedly  toward  the  suppression  of  freedom  and  the 
encouragement  of  humble  submission  to  authority.  Under  such  cir- 
cumstances, thought  for  the  social  good  was  not  to  be  expected.  An 
individual,  sorely  restricted  in  his  efforts  after  self-improvement,  could 
not  dream  of  seeking  to  achieve  for  others  what  he  could  not  gain  for 
himself.  In  so  far,  therefore,  the  gaining  of  personal  freedom  was 
an  integral  and  necessary  step  in  the  path  of  progress  toward  social 
freedom.  The  ethics  of  benevolent  despotism  is  by  no  means  the  ethics 
of  social  idealism.  Benevolent  despotism  presupposes  a  certain  indi- 
vidual or  certain  individuals  vastly  better  equipped  than  others.  If 
it  has  raised  up  a  body  of  citizens  able  and  free  to  contribute  its  share 
of  wisdom  and  power  to  the  government,  then  the  tyranny  has  vanished. 
Autocratic  rule  presupposes  an  exclusive  monopoly  of  knowledge  and 
abihty  in  legislative  matters  in  its  own  hands.  Social  ethics,  on  the 
contrary,  arose  when  individuals  appeared  in  great  numbers,  capable 
of  saying,  "By  the  people,  for  the  people."  Absolutely  prerequisite, 
therefore,  were  independent,  seK-assertive  personalities  throughout  the 
full  strata  of  society.  Now,  even  in  the  seventeenth  century,  certain 
factors  were  at  work  tending  toward  the  emancipation  of  efficient  charac- 
ters outside  of  the  ruling  classes.  Foremost  among  such  influences 
was  the  rise  of  commerce  and  industry,  as  it  manifested  itself,  partly 
simultaneous  with  the  Puritan  era,  but  especially  immediately  subse- 
quent to  it. 

The  secularization  of  the  modern  state  has  progressed  hand  in  hand 
with  the  rise  to  control  of  economic  interests.  The  sixteenth  century, 
as  the  age  of  discovery  and  exploration,  was  followed  by  a  hundred 
years  which  marked  a  great  expansion  in  industry  and  commerce,  neces- 
sitated by  trade  with  the  new  lands.      The  Dutch  tradewith  the  Far 


25 

East  was  at  its  very  height  in  1650,  the  English  East  Indian  Company 
obtained  its  charter  from  Queen  Elizabeth  in  1600,  and  by  1750  had 
conquered  the  larger  part  of  the  Indian  Empire.    The  trade  with  the 
American  colonies,  beginning  soon  after  the  opening  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  waxed  ever  stronger  through  the  next  two  hundred    years 
until  abruptly  interrupted  by  the  outbreak  of  the  War  of  Independence. 
A  large  increase  in  production  responded  to  the  increased  demand  for 
English  goods.     The  growth  of  cities  was  very  marked,  although  merely 
a  suggestion  of  their  coming  expansion  in  the  nineteenth  century.     In- 
dustrial communities  sprang  up  in  many  parts  of  the  country.     We  are 
not,  however,  interested  in  the  statistics  of  the  growth  of  trade  and 
industry.     It  is  only  for  us  to  note  the  changes  in  current  ethical  thought 
tnereby  occasioned.    The  general  tendency  in  the  case  of  the  successful  ; 
acquirement  of  riches  is  to  engross  the  merchant  in  the  very  joy  of  \ 
achievement.    Wealth  becomes  an  end   in  itself.    The  Puritans,   in 
consequence  of  their  glorification  of  thrift,  in  their  regard  for  work  as 
a  mortification  of  the  flesh,  and  in  their  abjuration  of  costly  pleasures, 
found    themselves    building    up    capitahstic    enterprises.    Now    great 
numbers  of  business  men  have  remained  pious  reUgionists,  but  the 
general  development  is  rather  toward  an  over-shadowing  of  the  other 
interests   of   life   in    that   of   money-getting.     Commercial   enterprise 
assumes  larger  and  larger  proportions  and  demands  increasing  shrewdness 
in  the  struggles  of  ever  fiercer  competition.    The  simple  craftsman  and  , 
the  small  store-keeper  of  medieval  times  knew  Httle  of  the  tremendous  ' 
fascination  which  the  great  game  of  organized  trading  began  to  exert  ( 
in  city  life.    The  center  of  attention  in  the  case  of  the  new  trading  i 
classes  became  transferred  from  effort  after  future  blessedness  toward  j 
the  gaining  of  material  success  in  this  life.    Many  became  introduced  / 
to  the  comforts  of  fine  homes  and  a  bountiful  board,  who  had  been  half-  \ 
persuaded  previously  that  such  blessings  were  associated  by  divine   \ 
enactment  with  the  blue  blood  of  aristocracy  only.    The  strife  was  no 
longer  to  despise  the  world  and  leave  it;  very  practical  openings  for  the    / 
exercise  of  all  the  talents  of  the  individual  and  very  substantial  rewards 
for  such  effort  were  presented  right  in  the  world  of  affairs.    The  business    / 
man,  in  the  general  run,  leaned  away  from  other-worldly  aims  toward 
this-worldly  purposes. 

Furthermore,  the  blind  faith  in  a  divine  manipulation  of  human 
affairs  was  decidedly  weakened  by  the  new  trade-impetus.  It  became, 
on  the  surface  at  least,  perfectly  evident  that  business  success  came 
not  so  directly  in  response  to  prayer  as  in  reward  of  cleverness  and 


26 

initiative.  Men  saw  the  actual  cash  value  of  that  superior  education 
which  would  enable  a  man  of  natural  gifts  to  out-distance  his  competitors. 
Attention  was  turned  towards  a  seeking  after  material  goods  and,  with 
that  desire,  came  a  realization  that  the  end  was  best  attained  through 
proficiency  and  expertness  in  some  trade  or  profession.  Now,  as  a 
rule,  the  expert,  who  had  attained  a  reputation  for  unique  wisdom  and 
signal  ability  over  his  fellows  was  the  man  who  had  completely  engrossed 
himseK  in  the  interests  of  some  one  narrow  phase  of  worldly  affairs. 
The  influence  of  developing  trade,  therefore,  was  to  elevate  a  class  of 
men,  hitherto  lorded  over  by  the  aristocracy,  to  positions  of  affluence, 
to  fill  them  with  the  joy  of  emancipation  and  achievement,  and  to  en- 
gross them  in  the  fitting  of  themselves  and  their  children  for  still  greater 
success  in  business  and  larger  influence  in  public  and  social  affairs. 

Again,  the  large  impetus  to  commercial  activity  which  we  are  here 
considering,  not  only  encouraged  a  riveting  of  interest  upon  the  good 
things  of  this  world  and  the  means  of  their  acquirement,  but  also  wiped 
out,  in  surprising  fashion,  much  of  man's  supposedly  necessary  burden  of 
poverty  and  misery.  The  commercial  cities  became  more  flourishing 
than  their  less  ambitious  neighbors,  and,  accordingly,  the  whole  general 
standard  of  life  was  raised.  Increased  prosperity  among  the  inhabitants 
led  to  better  conditions  of  sanitation  and  such  steps  toward  civic  im- 
provement as  were  then  understood.  Even  vice  could  be  combatted 
more  effectively  where  Hberal  provision  was  made  for  more  efficient 
policing  and  administration.  The  Calvinistic  doctrine  of  election  im- 
plied that  all  things  at  present  existent  could  not  have  been  otherwise 
than  they  were.  And  the  given  amount  of  sin  and  suffering  were  the 
necessary  consequences  of  an  evil  mortal  nature.  Yet  here  were  certain 
cities  able,  by  virtue  of  their  superior  prosperity,  to  do  away  with  a 
very  considerable  portion  of  the  vice  and  poverty  which  other  more 
lethargic  cities  did  not  have  the  means  to  remove.  The  commercially 
successful  man  began  to  observe,  what  science  also  was  beginning  to 
discover,  that  the  welfare  of  himself  and  even  of  society  was  improved 
accordingly  to  perfectly  traceable  laws  of  cause  and  effect  working 
through  material  phenomena. 

The  settlement  of  new  lands,  quite  in  addition  to  its  stimulation 
of  commercial  activity,  exerted  an  influence  in  altering  the  ethical 
ideals  of  the  pioneers  who  stepped  out  from  the  conservatism  and  finish 
of  an  old  civilization  into  a  wilderness  requiring  subjugation  and  con- 
structive development.  There  was  an  exaltation  of  the  heroic  virtues. 
To  be  sure,  individualism  was  emphasized  in  some  respects.     Men 


27 

were  seeking  fame  and  fortune  for  seK  in  abandoning  the  home-ties  and 
father-land  The  joy  of  triumph  over  obstacles  and  mastery  over 
nature  causes  a  glow  of  self-pride.  Yet  this  is  not  the  Puritan  individ- 
ualism. The  ends  sought  were  such  as  the  clearing  of  forests  —  aims 
of  practical  accomplishment  rather  than  religious  devotion.  The  enthu- 
siasm in  creative  work  left  little  chance  for  a  pioneer  to  be  a  Bunyan, 
oppressed  by  a  melancholic  burden  of  sin.  And  social  tendencies  are 
also  decidedly  apparent  among  the  settlers  of  the  New  World.  United 
action  was  necessary  against  the  Indians;  fences  were  put  up  and  roads 
built  with  very  evident  cooperation  among  neighbors.  Persons  far 
from  the  scenes  of  their  birth,  surrounded  by  a  new  environment  and 
unfamiliar  races  of  men,  feel  a  strong  sympathy  and  attachment  towards 
anyone  who  comes  from  ''the  old  home."  So  today  communities  of 
Americans  in  oriental  cities  and  in  our  island  possessions  feel  a  solidarity 
one  with  another  which  would  be  unknown  where  all  men  are  of  common 
color  and  stage  of  civilization.  In  Chicago,  one  chooses  his  intimate 
friends  with  careful,  though  largely  unconscious,  selection,  and  is  perhaps 
accustomed  to  mingle  with  thousands  of  persons  in  social  and  business 
affairs  with  scarcely  a  feeling  of  any  real  affection  toward  them.  In 
Hongkong,  however,  every  American  you  meet  is  your  friend,  and  there 
is  a  very  definite  sense  that  you  are  thoroughly  glad  to  see  him.  In 
general,  therefore,  the  frontier  offered  much  incentive  to  the  growth  of 
a  feehng  of  fellowship  and  of  a  sense  of  social  responsibility,  parallel 
with  increased  confidence  in  individual  strength. 

The  reUgious  intolerance  of  many  of  the  early  communities  in  the 
American  colonies  has  often  been  commented  upon.  However,  the 
wonder  is,  not  that  many  groups  retained  their  old  World  ideas  of  secta- 
rian salvation,  but  that  so  many  places  did  manifest  tendencies  toward 
religious  magnanimity.  To  Roger  Williams  belongs  the  honor  of  having 
founded  in  Rhode  Island  the  first  modern  state  which  was  really  tolerant 
and  was  based  on  the  principle  of  giving  the  civil  government  no  control 
over  rehgious  matters.  In  Maryland,  through  the  influence  of  Lord 
Baltimore,  an  Act  of  Toleration  was  passed  in  1649,  notable  as  the 
first  decree,  voted  by  a  legal  assembly,  granting  complete  freedom  to 
all  Christians.^  Particularly  as  the  trend  went  westward  beyond  the 
closed  religious  communities  of  the  East,  church  bigotry  became  less 
marked  and  the  path  opened  through  mutual  appreciation  of  personal 
worth  in  the  weakening  of  faith  in  a  specific  creed  or  ritual  as  the  sole 

1  See  Bury,  J.  B.:  Hist,  of  Freedom  oj  Thought,  p.  97. 


28 

means  of  salvation.  Secular  agencies  began  to  be  increasingly  estab- 
lished in  the  new  country  which  took  away  from  the  church  its  former 
supervision  of  such  lines  as  punishment  of  crime,  the  relief  of  the  poor 
and  the  maintenance  of  schools. 

Especially  marked  in  the  settlement  of  America  was  the  influx  of 
personalities  of  broad  and  generous  purposes  whose  social  sympathies 
had  arisen  in  noble  hearts  but  had  found  insuperable  obstacles  amid 
the  conservatism  of  Europe.  In  1667,  William  Penn,  having  assisted 
to  expel  a  soldier  who  disturbed  a  meeting  of  Quakers  at  Cork,  was 
thrown  into  prison  and  from  there  he  first  pubhcly  asserted  in  a  letter 
the  claim  for  perfect  freedom  of  conscience.  In  the  constitution  which 
he  drew  up  for  his  new  colony  in  America,  he,  therefore,  guaranteed 
as  a  fundamental  principle  the  rights  he  could  not  win  for  himself  in 
England.  He  gave  a  first  place  to  the  new  conception  of  entire  reUgious 
freedom  and  further  asserted  that  "no  one  might  be  condemned  in 
life,  Uberty  or  estate  except  by  a  jury  of  twelve. "  The  wretched  death 
of  a  friend  in  the  debtor's  prison  drew  the  attention  of  Oglethorpe  to 
England's  ignorant  injustice  toward  men,  criminal  not  in  intent  but 
only  by  force  of  circumstances.  In  response  to  his  efforts  in  ParHament, 
he  obtained  a  grant  of  land  which  enabled  him  to  form  a  colony  for 
the  relief  of  insolvent  debtors.  These  men,  hitherto  left  to  suffer  under 
the  "vengeance  of  God,"  found  God's  hand  led  them  into  successful 
careers  in  America,  as  soon  as  man  let  them  out  of  prison.  The  fault 
was,  evidently,  not  with  God,  but  rather  with  man's  inhumanity  to 
man.  The  new  land  was,  therefore,  a  land  of  new  beginnings,  new 
promfses  and  new  ideals.  It  was  preeminently  the  home  of  those  who 
had  known  what  oppression  and  suffering  was  and  who  were  longing 
for  a  larger  and  fuller  life.  It  knew  no  such  class  division  as  centuries 
of  precedent  had  built  up  in  Europe,  principally  because  the  titled 
class  sent  few  representatives  into  the  hardships  of  a  new  field.  There 
was  scarcely  the  slightest  appearance  of  the  aristocratic  notion  of  the 
meanness  of  manual  labor.  There  was  fear  of  ignorance,  and  the  leaders 
of  the  new  nation  embodied  in  the  checks  and  balances  of  the  constitu- 
tion their  dread  of  rule  by  the  hasty  sentiment  and  passion  of  the  mob. 
Yet  this  very  fact  is  a  recognition  of  the  value  of  intelligence  and  not 
birth  as  measuring  a  man's  worth.  Although  some  trace  of  aristocratic 
feeling  remained  even  in  a  Washington,  stiU  the  New  World  had  taught 
that,  given  equal  chances,  an  aristocracy  of  worth  would  spring  up  and 
that,  by  increasing  those  chances  for  all,  a  nobility  of  the  many  and  not 
of  the  few  would  appear.    It  was  a  new  vision  of  the  possibilities  in 


29 

every  human  being,  regardless  of  his  antecedents.  The  fact  that  men 
of  all  births  and  stations  were  working  together  on  a  common  ground, 
the  joy  in  freedom  from  oppression  by  a  privileged  class,  the  fact  that 
the  citizens  realized  their  chance  to  develop  a  system  which  would 
avoid  many  of  the  abuses  of  the  Old  World,  fostered  a  marked  sense  of 
social  solidarity  in  the  young  colonies. 


CHAPTER  IV 
Deism  and  Rationalism 

They  cried:  "Peace,  peace,  when  there  is  no  peace."  Since  the 
days  of  the  Reformation,  the  history  of  the  church-controlled  states  of 
Europe  had  been  a  constant  course  of  strife  and  bloodshed.  In  Ger- 
many, the  horrors  of  the  Thirty  Years  War  had  been  perpetrated  in 
the  name  of  Christian  doctrine.  Bearing  aloft  the  cross  of  Christ, 
the  stern  forces  of  Spain  under  Philip  II  had  come  to  exact  a  bloody 
tribute  from  valiant  Uttle  Holland.  The  Huguenots,  numbering  many  of 
the  noblest  and  most  courageously  virtuous  men  of  France,  had  been 
driven  from  their  homes  because  they  set  the  teachings  of  the  Gospel 
against  the  doctrines  of  the  Roman  Church.  The  Anabaptists,  with 
deep  conviction  that  the  existing  church  was  too  hopelessly  corrupt 
to  be  worthy  of  the  name  of  Christian,  were  moved  to  cast  aside  the 
traditions  dearest  to  the  German  heart  and  separate  from  the  church 
of  the  Fatherland.  Persecution  and  martyrdom  were  the  reward  of 
their  faithfulness  to  conscience.  England,  too,  had  suffered  her  full 
share  of  religious  dissension.  That  the  old  narrow,  persecuting,  intol- 
erant spirit  was  still  rife  in  England  was  shown  by  the  hanging  of  Thom.as 
Aikenhead  in  1697  for  ridiculing  the  Bible.  When  William  began  his 
reign,  the  avowed  non-conformists,  including  Presbyterians,  Indepen- 
dents, and  Baptists,  numbered  a  fifth  of  the  population,  and  at  its  close 
a  full  million  members  were  in  their  ranks.  But  the  hand  of  the  law 
still  laid  heavy  disabilities  upon  them.  The  universities  were  closed 
to  them;  only  Anglican  ministers  could  marry  them  legally;  and  oc- 
casional conformity  was  necessary  if  they  wished  to  escape  serious 
risks  in  taking  office  or  going  into  any  of  the  great  corporations  of  the 
day.  Within  the  Established  Church  the  non-jurors  created  a  rumpus. 
When  William  and  Mary  ascended  the  throne,  nine  bishops  of  the 
church  refused  the  oath  of  allegiance.  The  chronicle  of  Europe  in  the 
Seventeenth  Century  is  the  story  of  endless  strife,  ill-will  and  destruction 
of  property  due  to  the  hatred  of  Christian  by  Christian. 

Society  at  length  grew  tired  of  the  never  ceasing  conflict  between 
ecclesiastical  leaders  and  parties.  If  the  Christian  message  required 
love  toward  one's  neighbor,  it  looked  as  though  the  church  must  be  a 
sorry  exponent  of  its  master's  teachings.  "Peace  on  earth,  good- will 
toward  men:"  had  been  completely  lost  sight  of  in  the  endless  tangle  of 


31 

theological  disputes  and  bitter  contests  for  the  reins  of  political  power. 
The  rationalistic  movement  throughout  Europe  was  the  expression  of 
the  wide-spreading  conviction  that  the  religion  of  the  church  and  theo- 
logy was  dead.  Its  purpose  was  to  formulate  a  philosophy,  dependent 
neither  upon  a  church  nor  upon  revelation,  which  might  steady  things 
and  might  build  up  a  rock  of  strength  as  a  refuge  for  men  in  the  midst 
of  troubled  waters.  It  was  the  church  consciousness  which  had  been 
stimulating  wars.  BeUef  in  a  verbally-inspired  body  of  scripture  had 
resulted  in  a  hopeless  conflict  of  warring  factions,  each  supporting  its 
own  interpretations  of  the  given  words.  A  priori  rationalism  is  the 
attempt  to  substitute  for  ecclesiastical  control  a  rational  control.  It 
seeks  to  ground  in  the  human  reason  and  not  in  external  authority  the 
great  spiritual  values  of  life.  It  aims  to  found  a  philosophy  of  life  needing 
no  supernatural  sanctions  for  its  support,  but  to  which  any  reasonable 
man  must  assent  upon  presentation.  An  Inquisition  or  a  trial  for  heresy 
was  henceforth  to  be  impossible.  Every  man,  in  so  far  as  he  possessed 
the  divine  spark  of  wisdom,  in  his  breast,  must  recognize  the  elemental 
truths  of  God  and  immortality.  As  a  rule,  it  is  only  necessary  to  bring 
a  spark  to  the  lamp  of  reason,  and  the  inner  light  will  glow.  If  you 
disagree  with  principles  accepted  universally  by  rational  minds,  you 
are  manifestly  probably  in  error,  but  you  are  none  the  less  supreme  in 
your  own  little  kingdom  and  no  external  authority  can  compel  your 
beliefs. 

The  contention  of  McGiffert  seems  pertinent  and  reasonable  that 
the  true  break  between  Medievalism  and  Modernism  occurred  in  the 
change  from  belief  in  the  depravity  of  man  to  trust  in  his  reason.  As 
to  ontology,  Calvinism  tended  to  determinism,  the  new  deism  to  volun- 
tarism; as  to  cosmology,  the  one  to  pessimism,  the  other  to  optimism; 
as  to  epistemology,  the  one  to  agnosticism,  the  other  to  rationalism; 
as  to  psychology,  the  one  to  a  doctrine  of  inabiUty,  the  other  to  that  of 
ability.^  Catholicism  and  all  the  branches  of  the  Protestant  church 
down  through  Calvinism  to  Puritanism  had  asserted  the  natural  sin- 
fulness of  man  and  the  original  inability  of  the  human  reason.  An 
infallible  church  was  needed  to  direct  man  aright.  But  numerous 
churches  had  arisen  each  declaring  its  own  infallibility,  and  negating 
that  of  others.  Inevitable  conclusion — no  church  is  infalhble.  But 
by  what  authority  was  this  conclusion  reached? — by  no  other  verdict 
than  that  of  the  much-despised  human  reason.  The  first  great  leader 
of  thought  to  lay  hold  of  this  truth  was  Grotius  (1583-1645)  who  Hved 

^  See  Riley,  I.  W.:  American  Philosophy,  p.  43. 


32 

long  before  the  appearance  of  Deism  in  England.  The  ultimate  au- 
thority, which  cannot  be  found  in  the  church  must  he  in  nature — this 
he  intuitively  discerned.  And  the  content  of  this  natural  law  must  be 
discoverable  by  the  human  reason.  Tests  indeed  we  have:  (1)  the 
a  priori  one  in  which  we  judge  agreement  or  disagreement  with  a  reason- 
able and  social  nature,  and  (2)  the  a  posteriori  method  in  which  the  com- 
mon agreement  of  mankind  substantiates  validity.  But  it  is  the  human 
reason— hitherto  despised  and  rejected  of  men — which  applies  these 
tests.  The  influence  of  Grotius  was  great.  A  new  respect  for  man 
appeared,  in  the  writings  of  other  than  ecclesiastical  authors.  There 
was  enthusiasm  for  man's  greatness  in  contrast  to  the  former  contempt 
for  his  wretched  worthlessness.  Gustavus  Adolphus  always  carried  in 
his  pocket  a  copy  of  Grotius,  the  new  friend  and  champion  of  mankind. 

During  the  close  of  the  17th  century  and  the  first  half  of  the  18th, 
the  Deistic  controversy  arose  to  a  foremost  place  in  the  pubhc  attention 
of  England.  The  beginnings  of  this  revolt  against  ecclesiastical  au- 
thority are  noticeable  as  early  as  the  reign  of  Charles  I;  its  culmination 
is  in  the  period  from  the  Revolution  of  1688  to  the  invasion  of  the  Pre- 
tender in  1745;  while  during  the  close  of  the  reign  of  George  II  and  the 
early  part  of  that  of  George  III,  Deism,  as  a  separate  philosophical 
movement  is  in  visible  decline.  During  the  first  of  the  18th  century,  the 
adherents  to  the  Deistic  point  of  view  were  almost  wholly  members 
of  the  upper  classes.  But  in  the  latter  part,  the  revolt  spread  to  the 
lower  also,  pohtical  antipathy  toward  the  church  finally  having  tended 
toward  rehgious  unbelief. 

The  tremendous  popularity  of  the  Deistic  writings  and  the  amazing 
extent  of  their  influence  can  be  mentioned  only  in  a  brief  paragraph. 
Overton,  in  discussing  Berkeley's  Anti-Deis  tic  book,  Alciphron  or  the 
Minute  Philosopher,  speaks  of  it  as  written  "at  a. time  when  Christianity 
was  regarded  not  only  as  unworthy  of  investigation,  but  so  fundamen- 
tally unsound  and  untrue,  so  wanting  even  in  the  necessary  basis  of 
historic  fact,  that  the  only  thing  to  be  done  with  it  was  to  finally  dis- 
credit it  by  means  of  mirth  and  ridicule,  and  thus  prevent  it  from  any 
longer  interfering  with  the  ways  and  works  of  the  world.  It  was  dead 
and  needed  only  to  be  buried.  "^  The  sale  even  of  Woolston's  very 
partisan  and  almost  venomous  work  Six  Discourses  on  Miracles  very 
quickly  ran  into  a  sixth  edition.  Voltaire  states  the  immediate  sale 
to  have  exceeded  thirty  thousand  copies,  and  Swift  describes  them  as 
the  food  of  every  pohtician.     It  must  be  emphasized,  however,  that  the 

2  Overton,  J.  H.:  The  English  Church,  p.  52. 


33 

rationalistic  movement  did  meet  in  many  quarters  with  fierce  opposition. 
Its  influence  for  the  future  cannot,  of  course,  be  considered  in  that 
degree  to  have  been  lessened,  for  opposition  gave  it  always  greater 
publicity  and  added  adherents.  The  forces  of  church  organization 
and  conservative  institutions  proved  bitterly  intolerant.  Woolston 
was  prosecuted  in  court  by  the  Bishop  of  London,  condemned  to  a 
fine,  and,  unable  to  pay,  was  confined  in  prison  till  released  by  death. 
The  good  Toland,  two  years  after  the  publication  of  his  Christianity 
not  Mysterious  received  sentence  from  the  Irish  Parliament,  which 
refused  to  hear  him  in  defense,  that  his  book  be  burned  and  its  author 
imprisoned.  He  escaped  only  by  flight  and  years  of  exile.  Yet,  withal, 
he  lived  to  see  the  spirit  of  free  inquiry  for  which  he  stood  accorded 
the  favor  of  public  appreciation.  As  throughout  history,  persecution 
had  but  abetted  the  cause  of  freedom. 

The  impression  must  not  be  left  that  most  of  the  Deists  were  writing 
from  fundamental  impulses  of  hostility  to  the  teachings  of  Christ. 
Here  let  me  quote  from  McGiffert:  "To  claim  that  such  men  as  Tindal, 
Chubb,  and  Morgan  were  opposed  to  Christianity,  and  were  trying  to 
destroy  it,  is  to  misrepresent  them  altogether.  They  did  not  deny  that 
Jesus  was  a  divine  messenger,  or  that  Christianity  is  a  true  religion.  .  .  . 
They  were  .  .  .  attempting  to  distinguish  the  essential  and  the  non- 
essential in  Christianity,  with  the  design  of  promoting  true  morality 
and  religion,  and  doing  away  with  the  superstitions  of  the  traditional 
Christian  system  which  so  commonly  interfered  with  both.  The  tre- 
mendous interest  of  most  of  the  Deists  in  the  public  good,  and  their 
hostility  to  selfishness  and  self-seeking,  are  very  noticeable.  In  our 
own  day  similar  attempts  to  distinguish  between  the  true  and  the  false 
in  Christianity  with  the  like  purpose  of  promoting  the  good  of  humanity 
.  .  .  are  made  by  men  who  are  within  the  Christian  church.  .  .  . 
This  should  throw  light  upon  the  situation  in  the  eighteenth  century 
and  lead  us  to  speak  at  least  of  some  of  the  Deists  as  defenders  rather 
than  opponents  of  Christianity."^ 

At  least  three  essential  premises  of  Puritanism  were  fundamentally 
uprooted  from  the  rehgious  thought  of  England  as  a  result  of  the  ration- 
alistic philosophical  movement:  (1)  the  idea  that  salvation  was  only 
through  the  church;  (2)  that  God  spoke  to  men  only  in  one  complete 
revelation  external  to  the  hearts  of  men;  and  (3)  that  the  supernatural 
was  an  active  agency  in  the  world  causing  and  removing  evil  which 
was  itself  necessary  and  due  to  man's  depravity.    These  three  postu- 

» M'Giffert,  A.  C:  Protestant  Thought  Before  Kant,  pp.  228-9. 


34 

lates  the  Deists  in  general  thought  to  be  productive  of  a  positively- 
unmoral  attitude  towards  life.  Deism  did  not  hold  out  the  goal  of 
social  service,  nor  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number  as  the  end 
and  purpose  of  all  individual  life— but  it  did  exalt  morality  of  life  above 
a  claim  to  supernatural  authority.  It  declared,  in  its  method  at  least, 
that  the  purpose  of  religion  was  purity  of  life.  It  performed  in  large 
measure  a  work  of  destruction — destruction  of  privilege,  of  clerical 
tyranny,  of  slavery  to  candles  and  ritual  prayers,  of  belief  in  a  super- 
natural which  left  no  room  for  human  interference  and  achievement. 

A  striking  weakness  of  the  Deistic  position  from  the  point  of  view 
of  this  paper  may  well  be  pointed  out.  In  the  first  place  it  did  not  instill 
the  moral  enthusiasm  which  is  essential  for  binding  men  together  in 
effort  and  for  placing  the  aims  of  the  individual  on  a  vigorous  and  lofty 
plane.  The  great  Deistic  writers  were  thinkers  rather  than  doers. 
They  left  the  leadership  of  society  to  others — a  scheme  which  was 
perhaps  necessary  to  insure  their  own  success  in  building  up  a  coherent 
philosophical  system.  But  in  some  cases  the  moral  tone  of  their  own 
lives  was  not  high.  Their  philosophy  did  not  create  a  following  of 
men  of  broad  and  generous  sympathies,  who  were  lead  out  into  careers 
of  great  political  or  economic  import.  From  this  assertion  Robertson 
would  dissent,  claiming  that  nearly  all  the  leaders  of  the  American 
Revolution — Washington,  Paine,  Franklin,  Jefferson,  Adams  confessed 
themselves  at  one  time  or  another  to  have  been  profoundly  influenced 
by  Deism.  But  none  the  less,  they  also,  for  the  most  part,  held  loyally 
to  the  Christian  church,  as  best  offering  the  incentive  and  stimulus  to 
righteous  activity.  Virtues  defined  as  innate  truths,  lurking  in  the 
human  soul,  do  not  make  a  strong  appeal  to  the  heroic  in  man.  Deism 
did  not  possess  sufficient  intensity  to  make  of  itself  a  great  propaganda. 
In  its  revolt  on  the  negative  side  against  the  abstract  and  soulless  ortho- 
doxy of  its  time,  it  was  successful,  but  it  was  itself  to  fall  before  a  more 
positive  movement,  before  a  deeper  and  more  intense  religious  life 
which  supplied  the  moral  enthusiasm  necessary  to  achievement. 

In  summary,  it  may  be  said  that  the  Deistic,  or  in  larger  aspect, 
the  rationalistic  movement,  in  its  wide  influence  upon  the  intellectual 
life  of  Europe,  emphasized  five  great  conceptions  which  formed  just 
that  many  steps  in  the  transition  from  the  ideals  of  personal  right- 
eousness to  those  of  social  service.  First,  the  exaltation  of  reason  as 
the  lawful  arbiter  between  antagonistic  "supernatural  revelations"  and 
mutually  destructive  "infallible  churches"  enlarged  greatly  man's 
intellectual  freedom.     It  both  placed  a  new  value  upon  the  human 


35 

individual  and  it  left  him  free  to  think.  This  much  became  so  keenly 
ground  into  the  convictions  of  the  period  that  even  the  replies  of  the 
church  writers  admit  at  the  outset  of  their  proofs  that  reason  is  the 
final  judge  of  the  controversy.  Butler  aimed  at  exhibiting  as  "the 
same  set  of  moral  laws  the  moral  government  of  God  which  is  visible 
to  natural  reason,  and  the  spiritual  government  which  is  unveiled  by 
revelation."*  Deism  represented  the  first  wide-spread  recognition  of 
the  right  of  free  inquiry  in  regard  to  every  province  of  the  interests 
of  man.  It  gave  philosophical  expression  to  all  the  many  movements 
at  this  time  for  the  dethronement  of  constituted  authorities — intellectual, 
political,  and  ecclesiastical.  The  Revolution  had  promoted  for  the 
people  of  England  civil  and  religious  liberty,  generating  free  speculation 
and  urging  each  man  to  form  his  own  political  creed.  On  the  intel- 
lectual side,  the  philosophy  of  Locke  demanded  a  reconstruction  of  the 
very  first  principles  of  knowledge.  The  Deistic  spirit  of  free  inquiry 
destroyed  in  large  measure  the  last  barriers — namely  those  built  by 
priestcraft  and  sacerdotalism — against  the  free  expression  of  man's 
spirit  in  his  universe. 

Secondly,  in  its  destruction  of  the  theory  of  the  natural  depravity 
of  man  and  in  its  discard  of  supernatural  intervention,  rationaUsm 
prepared  the  way  for  the  scientific  attitude  toward  the  world.  The 
attack  upon  miracle  tales,  which  was  begun  in  Blount's  writings  and 
continued  by  Woolston,  furthered  a  general  acceptance  of  the  right  to 
question  any  assumption  and  hold  it  up  to  scientific  examination.  This 
was  an  essential  step  in  clearing  the  way  for  the  appearance  of  an  eager- 
ness among  individuals  to  make  some  contribution  of  their  .own 
towards  the  world's  progress.  As  long  as  there  existed  hope  of  d  vine 
intervention,  it  was  presumptuous  in  man  to  attempt  to  mold  his  world. 
As  long  as  all  of  the  details  of  human  affairs  were  explicitly  directed 
in  the  hands  of  God,  there  was  no  room  for  the  scientific  conception  of 
mastery  over  nature.  Deism  told  mankind  that  God  was  working 
out  his  purposes  through  them.  He  had  endowed  them  with  reason — 
a  spark  of  the  divine — sufficient  for  working  out  their  own  destinies, 
and  there  could  be  no  hope  that  a  rational  God  would  irrationally  set  at 
naught  the  workings  of  His  own  nature  as  expressed  in  natural  law.  The 
challenge  was  given  to  science  to  take  up  the  salvation  of  life  in  this 
world. 

Thirdly,  the  entire  rationalistic  development  tended  to  admit  the 
inherent  equaUty  of  every  human  individual.    Democracy  Ues  implied 

*  Farrar,  A.  S.:  History  of  Thought,  p.  159. 


k 


36 

at  every  hand  in  the  thought  of  the  period.  A  rational  (secular)  in- 
dividual is  created  with  absolute  rights,  each  self  with  its  own  inalienable 
endowment,  as  over  against  earlier  Christian  doctrine  which  had  re- 
cognized only  the  regenerate  (ecclesiastical)  individual  as  possessing 
absolute  rights.  The  spirit  of  Protestantism  had  long  stood  for  demo- 
cracy within  its  own  ranks,  but  the  unbeliever  was  essentially  an  outcast, 
a  being  in  the  possession  of  the  evil  one  from  whom  nothing  but  evil 
could  proceed.  The  church  never  gave  its  blessing  fully  to  the  efforts 
of  unbelieving  philanthropists  and  scientists,  but  the  Deistic  movement 
gave  them  definite  recognition,  which  was  bound  to  be  some  stimulus 
to  their  labors  for  human  weKare.  The  rights  of  the  lower  classes  as 
over  against  the  privileged  aristocracy  were  not  sounded  with  any 
definiteness,  nor  did  champions  of  the  oppressed  appear.  But  the 
prior  step  towards  an  awakening  to  social  wrongs  was  the  preparation 
of  the  public  mind  for  a  respect  for  every  individual  as  such.  Ration- 
aHsm  went  back  to  Stoicism  in  recognizing  the  spark  of  the  divine,  the 
presence  of  the  Logos  in  every  rational  person  of  this  world.  The 
Deists  aimed  at  rational  faith  in  order  that  they  might  make  religion 
the  heritage  not  of  God's  elect,  but  of  &Dery  man.  In  the  writings  of 
Tindal,  we  find  one  of  the  first  visions  in  Christian  literature  that  God 
in  his  infinite  mercy  may  extend  salvation  to  the  heathen  also.  The 
recognition  of  the  consequent  rights  of  each  individual,  as  implied  in 
the  inherent  worth  of  each,  was  left  to  later  generations  to  work  out  in 
the  development  of  democracy. 

Fourthly,  and  perhaps  most  significantly,  as  its  own  direct  and 
far-reaching  contribution.  Deism  gave  to  the  moral  life  a  new  evaluation. 
Virtue  is  placed  higher  than  formal  adherence  to  church  or  creed.  Re- 
ligion is  to  be  tested  by  its  fruits.  Shaftesbury,  Morgan,  and  Toland 
all  bring  God  into  the  world  and  stand  for  His  immanence.  He  is  not 
to  be  worshipped,  therefore,  in  the  old  forms  of  asceticism,  sectarian 
zeal,  or  pious  communion,  but  by  a  life  of  virtue  in  the  world.  Moral 
conscience,  convinced  of  its  own  sterling  integrity  can  say  to  a  lying  and 
hypocritical  priest:  "You  are  a  sinner!  My  life  is  more  acceptable  to 
God  than  is  yours,  however  much  you  wear  the  robes  and  trappings 
of  religion."  The  indirect  influence  of  Deism  was  perhaps  even  more 
important  than  any  wide-spread  acceptance  of  its  official  tenets.  Deism 
did  not  say  that  morality  makes  religion  and  creates  its  own  God.  But 
it  did  say  that  morality  typifies  for  us  the  godlike.  It  did  claim  that 
God  in  His  very  nature  must  embody  ethical  law,  and  that  we  humans 


37 

can  refuse  to  accept  any  conception  of  God  which  does  not  accept  the 
highest  moral  principles  to  which  the  race  has  attained. 

Fifthly,  in  their  glorification  of  the  practice  of  virtue  over  the  ob- 
servance of  holy  forms,  some  of  the  Deists,  notably  Tindal  and  Chubb, 
caught  a  glimpse  of  the  social  gospel.  The  supreme  duty  of  man, 
Tindal  explicitly  stated,  is  to  live  in  such  a  way  as  to  promote  the  public 
good.  Benevolence  is  the  highest  attribute  both  in  God  and  man, 
and  to  live  the  life  of  love  is  to  fulfill  the  will  of  God.  This  needs  no 
revelation  to  prove  it  true.  Reason  itself  leads  necessarily  to  the  recog- 
nition of  universal  love  and  kindness  as  the  highest  duty  of  man,  in 
whose  practice  consists  his  perfection.  Chubb  is  interesting  as  re- 
presenting the  Deism  of  a  working  man,  as  contrasted  with  that  of 
Tindal,  the  theologian.  His  main  contention  is  that  Christianity  is 
not  a  doctrine  but  a  life,  not  the  reception  of  a  system  of  truth  or  facts, 
but  a  pious  effort  to  live  in  accordance  with  God's  wiU  here  in  the  hope 
of  joining  Him  hereafter.  He  dealt  with  special  emphasis  on  the  fact 
that  Christ  preached  his  gospel  to  the  poor  and  sought  to  bring  hap- 
piness to  all  classes  of  men.  However,  in  the  conception  of  these  early 
thinkers,  benevolence  meant  little  more  than  "charity" — a  self-satisfied 
virtue  showering  gifts  from  above  on  those  below  as  a  manifestation 
of  its  own  goodness.  We  do  not  find  the  ideas  of  the  inherent  right 
of  every  person  to  his  share  in  the  goods  of  the  cosmic  process,  nor  of 
the  necessity  of  the  individual  self,  as  social,  expressing  itself  in  relation 
to  the  whole.  Full  regard  is  not  paid  to  the  fact  that  the  good  of  the 
individual  is  bound  up  in  the  good  of  the  whole.  We  now  see  that 
if  I  cast  good  bread  upon  the  waters,  I  find  nourishing  food  available 
in  turn  for  myself;  if  I  spread  evil,  I  must  myself  eat  of  the  poisoned 
loaves.  But,  in  their  emphasis  upon  altruistic  purpose  as  high  in  tjie 
hierarchy  of  virtues,  the  Deists  contributed  positive  gain  in  spreading 
an  interest  in  the  welfare  of  humanity. 


CHAPTER  V 

The  Early  Eighteenth  Century  Moralists 

Simultaneously  with  the  researches  of  {he  rationalistic  theologians 
into  the  foundations  of  religious  belief,  an  important  series  of  specula- 
tions was  being  carried  on  in  the  strictly  philosophic  realm  concerning 
the  nature  of  the  moral  consciousness.  Beginning  with  the  appearance 
of  Clarke's  series  of  Boyle  Lectures  (1705)  and  running  through  Adam 
Smith's  Theory  of  Moral  Sentiment  (1759),  a  group  of  highly  significant 
thinkers  were  busy  interpreting  ethics  in  a  fashion  which  paid  considerable 
attention  to  the  disposition  upon  the  part  of  mankind  to  value  moraUty 
of  conduct  in  terms  of  its  relation  to  public  interest. 

The  principle  that  man  must  be  both  fair  and  just  towards  his  neigh- 
bor was  declared  by  Dr.  Samuel  Clarke  to  be  one  of  the  axioms  imme- 
diately recognized  as  valid  by  the  human  reason.  Three  rules  of  right- 
eousness were  laid  down  to  which,  it  is  claimed,  man  intuitively  assents. 
These  three  principles  concern  the  individual's  relations  to  God,  fellow 
men  and  self.  It  is  the  fact  that  Clarke  especially  stressed  the  second 
rule  that  is  significant  for  our  purpose.  He  found  that  man  commonly 
recognizes  the  validity  of  two  divisions  of  this  law:  (a)  Equity — which 
commands  ''that  we  so  deal  with  every  man  as  in  like  circumstances 
we  could  reasonably  expect  that  he  should  deal  with  us";  and  (b)  Love — 
universal  benevolence,  which  bids  one  to  promote  the  welfare  and  the 
happiness  of  all  men. 

The  conception  that  the  nature  of  society  is  organic  received  its 
first  formulation  by  Shaftesbury  in  his  Inquiry  concerning  Virtue  and 
Merit  (1711).  A  part  of  any  system,  he  points  out,  is  good  only  as 
properly  fitted  to  its  place  in  the  whole.  The  meaning  and  purpose 
of  the  individual  is  largely  found  in  his  significance  for  the  larger  whole, 
in  the  role  which  he  has  to  play  in  making  complete  the  drama  of  life. 
Now  the  good  of  the  species  must  be  more  valuable  than  the  good  of 
any  single  representative.  Therefore,  the  proper  end  of  moral  conduct 
is  the  good  of  all — ''public  interest"  is  the  final  standard  in  the  judgment 
of  right  and  wrong.  Yet  it  is  only  because  virtue  and  happiness  coincide 
that  we  can  really  be  sure  of  this  conclusion.  Shaftesbury  had  started 
with  "thoroughly  individualistic  conceptions  measuring  value  in  terms 
of  feeling,  conceiving  reason  largely  as  a  mere  means  for  obtaining  the 


39 

goods  of  feeling."^  But  progressing,  he  found  social  feeling  to  be  one 
of  the  strongest,  if  not  the  strongest,  of  human  affections.  This  is 
Shaftesbury's  great  contribution  to  the  history  of  ethical  thought — his 
conception  of  the  individual  as  orginally  social  both  in  feeling  and  instinct. 
Man,  therefore,  derives  his  greatest  happiness  from  action  which  pro- 
motes the  public  weal.  To  be  naturally  endowed  with  strong  public 
affections  is  to  possess  within  yourseff  the  chief  source  of  self-enjoyment. 
"Hence  the  good  of  all  tends  to  become  realized  through  the  enlightened 
endeavors  of  each  to  attain  his  own  true  happiness;  for  vice,  according 
to  Shaftesbury,  ultimately  springs  from  ignorance."^ 
Virtue  does,  indeed,  consist  in  a  harmony  of  the  "  self -affections, "  but 
benevolence  and  happiness  are  so  wrought  together  that  they  appear 
merely  as  different  aspects  of  this  same  moral  harmony.  The  two  main 
contributions  which  Shaftesbury  made  toward  a  philosophical  justi- 
fication of  the  validity  of  a  social  ideal  in  ethics  are  those  which  Tufts 
has  outlined:^  (1)  his  assertion  that  social  feeling  is  instinctive;  and  (2) 
his  claim  that  happiness  depends  upon  having  the  generous  affections 
strong,  while  misery  is  the  consequence  of  too  prominent  private  affec- 
tions. If  the  individual  seeks  only  self -gratification,  he  is  acting  contrary 
to  the  full  law  of  nature  and  must  suffer  the  penalty  that  comes  in  a 
losing  battle  against  himself  and  his  creator.  Thus  Shaftesbury  rallied 
to  the  support  of  the  social  ideal  not  only  happiness  as  the  reward  of 
disinterested  service,  but  threatened  the  punishment  of  wretchedness 
in  return  for  its  neglect.  Furthermore,  he  led  those  who  responded 
to  his  teachings  to  the  attitude  of  giving,  as  distinct  from  that  of  getting. 
The  modern  technique  of  social  service  could  never  have  been  developed 
by  men  whose  thoughts  were  centered  on  grabbing  all  they  could  for 
themselves.  It  was  only  those  who  went  out,  filled  with  desire  to  seek 
and  to  save  that  which  was  lost,  who  advanced  very  far  in  a  vision  of 
the  needs  of  the  social  whole.  The  study  of  human  hearts  is  one  of  the 
deepest  of  studies,  and  they  who  have  been  the  leaders  in  that  science 
are  those  who  have  given  themselves  unreservedly  to  its  pursuit.  He 
who  stands  with  eyes  closed  sees  no  opportunities  for  service;  he  who 
does  not  go  out  and  suffer  with  his  neighbor,  can  never  really  understand 
his  needs.  Shaftesbury,  therefore,  was  urging  men  to  enter  into  that 
effort  which  alone  could  show  them  what  there  was  to  be  done. 

Reverence  for  the  dictates  and  promptings  of  an  inner  voice  has 
proved  in  modern  men  a  strong  reinforcement  to  the  moral  motive. 

1  Tufts,  J.  H.  Univ.  of  Chicago  Contribs.  to  Phil,  No.  VI,  pt.  2,  p.  58. 

2  See  Tufts,  J.  H.,  Ih.  p.  6. 

'  Albee,  E. :  Hist.  Eng.  Utilitarianism,  p.  56. 


40 

It  was  Butler,  who,  in  his  Sermons  on  Human  Nature  {1126) ,  added  the 
concept  of  conscience  to  Shaftesbury's  proof  that  the  pubUc  good  is 
the  moral  end  of  human  conduct.  Man  not  only  possesses  a  rational 
moral  sense  inclining  him  to  benevolence,  but  there  is  developed  within 
him,  by  reflection,  a  principle  which  carries  with  it  authority — a  law 
which  man  makes  to  himself,  impelling  him  to  seek  the  good  of  all.  He 
accepts  Shaftesbury's  idea  that  society  is  naturally  an  organic  whole. 
There  are  just  as  real  indications  in  human  nature  that  we  were  made 
for  society  and  to  benefit  our  neighbors,  as  that  we  were  intended  to 
quard  our  own  life  and  health  and  private  well-being. 

Sympathy  formed  the  basis  of  Hume's  account  of  man's  moral  nature 
as  set  forth  in  his  Treatise  on  Human  Nature  (1739).  Sympathy  is 
accompanied  by  pleasure  and  therein  lies  the  explanation  that,  although 
pleasure  is  the  productive  factor  in  conduct,  man  seeks  to  benefit  others. 
Good  or  pleasure  means  not  merely-  private  good  but  public  good. 
"  Another's  good  may  'by  means  of  that  affection'  (benevolence)  become 
our  own  and  be  afterward  'pursued  from  the  combined  motives  of  benev- 
olence and  self -enjoyments.'"^  The  instinct  of  s)mipathy,  becoming 
generalized  by  thought,  presents  public  utility  as  the  primary  and 
universal  standard  of  morality. 

The  Utilitarian  standard  of  morality,  the  greatest  possible  happiness 
of  human  creatures,  is  suggested  and  accepted  both  by  Hutcheson  in 
his  System  (1755)  and  by  Adam  Smith  in  the  Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments 
(1759).  The  end  the  Creator  has  in  view  is  a  maximum  quantity  of 
human  happiness,  and  He  has  endowed  us  with  a  moral  sense,  in  order 
that  He  may  use  us  as  instruments  in  attaining  His  purposes.  Accord- 
ing to  Smith,  every  member  of  society  attempts  to  regulate  his  passions  to 
the  point  at  which  the  ordinary  spectator  can  sympathize  with  them. 
His  view  of  the  organic  unity  of  social  feeling,  as  based  on  common 
circumstances  and  conditions  of  life,  is  a  great  advance  even  over  Shaf- 
tesbury's conception.  The  moral  sense  men  had,  conceived  society 
as  built  up  of  individuals,  each  equipped  with  a  complete  moral  faculty; 
while  the  early  Utilitarians  had  assumed  that  in  society  there  was  not 
much  to  explain.  The  idea  of  the  individual  conscience  as  developed 
out  of  the  social,  the  idea  of  society  as  the  whole  from  which  the  indi- 
vidual emerges  is  emphasized  first  in  Adam  Smith's  writings.^ 

We  have  seen  that  in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the 
social  ideal  was  very  definitely  and  explicitly  formulated  by  a.  series 

*  Tufts,  J.  H.:  Univ.  of  Chicago  Contribs.  to  Phil.,  Vol.  I,  No.  VI,  pt.  2,  p.  46. 
6  See  Selby-Bigge:  British-Moralists,  V.  I,  p.  Ix. 


41 

of  ethical  thinkers  who  rank  high  among  England's  greatest  intellects. 
However,  to  maintain  that  they  exerted  any  widespread  influence  over 
their  own  time  in  the  inculcation  of  aims  to  live  out  that  ideal  would 
seem  unwarranted.  They  did,  without  doubt,  turn  the  attention 
of  thinking  men  toward  the  place  of  social  sympathy  in  a  moral  life. 
Furthermore,  they  did  give  a  most  invaluable  impetus  toward  inquiry 
concerning  the  individual's  relationship  to  the  social  group — the  action 
of  the  whole  in  molding  the  destiny  of  the  part,  and  the  possibility 
of  the  part  in  turn  reacting  upon  society.  But,  on  the  whole,  their 
influence  was  rather  upon  the  subsequent  development  of  English 
philosophy  than  upon  the  common  consciousness  of  their  generation. 
None  of  these  writers  took  pains  to  write  in  so  popular  a  form  as  to 
reach  the  masses.  They  did  not  organize  any  movements  to  give  better 
food  or  housing  or  education  to  the  lower  classes  of  society.  They  were 
simply  developing  a  notion  of  the  value  of  the  Alter  to  the  Ego,  and 
pointing  out  the  superior  beauty  of  a  life  inspired  by  thoughts  of  help- 
fulness over  one  motivated  by  selfishness. 

Such  a  system  of  philosophy  might  still  be  largely  aristocratic  and, 
however  much  democracy  may  follow  as  an  implication  of  their  doc- 
trines, we  can  find  no  impassioned  pleas  in  their  writings  on  behalf  of 
equal  opportunity  for  all.  Their  conception  of  benevolence  was  largely 
a  well-wishing  upon  the  part  of  those  naturally  superior  in  intellect 
and  breeding  toward  those  who  were  innately  inferior  in  capacity. 
Theirs  was  purely  an  attempt  to  formulate  a  philosophy  of  life.  The 
solving  of  political  problems,  the  study  of  economic  forces,  the  working 
out  of  schemes  for  social  improvement — these  were  all  left  for  succeeding 
and  more  pragmatic  generations  of  statesmen.  To  Shaftesbury  and 
Adam  Smith  we  owe  the  intellectual  foundations  upon  which  the  later 
missionaries  of  active  social  service  were  to  build. 


CHAPTER  VI 

Social  Unrest 

The  Decay  of  Puritanism  1700-1750— The  Growth  of  the  Factory 

System  after  1775 — The  Effects  of  the  American  and 

French  Revolutions 

The  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  a  period  of  tragic  moral 
and  religious  decline  in  the  life  of  the  English  people.  Amid  a  growing 
commercial  and  industrial  prosperity,  which  gave  a  name  to  the  period 
of  the  "golden  age  for  the  English  peasant,"  a  strange  lethargy  took 
hold  of  the  reUgious  world.  The  posts  of  highest  honor  in  the  ecclesias- 
tical world  were  held  by  a  few  favorites,  chosen  by  Walpole,  but,  none 
the  less,  heartily  despised  by  him  and  by  the  lower  clergy.  Bishops 
competed  for  rich  holdings,  but  the  system  of  pluralities  allowed  them 
to  remain  in  absentia,  wholly  without  knowledge  of  their  parishoners 
or  interest  in  them.  Sermons  lost  all  of  the  rigor  of  Puritan  days  and 
the  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment  remained  almost  unsounded.  To  be 
a  popular  ''gentleman,"  it  was  necessary  to  throw  off  all  of  the  virtues, 
as  well  as  the  bigotry,  for  which  Puritanism  had  stood.  In  the  revolt 
against  the  intolerable  tyranny  of  the  church,  even  a  frivolous  and 
superficial  attack  against  anything  sacred  by  a  rationalistic  critic  was 
widely  applauded.  The  example  of  the  court  was  degrading.  Leading 
statesmen  were  both  infidel  and  inamoral — drunkenness  and  blasphemy 
brought  no  disgrace  upon  Premier  Walpole.  Literature  was  rich  in 
proverbs  implying  wide-spread  impurity.  Schools  were  few  and  defec- 
tive, and  the  country  people  were  grossly  ignorant  and  superstitious. 
The  people  found  their  sport  in  bull-fights,  dog-fights,  and  brutalizing 
exhibitions  in  the  country  fight  halls.  Although  punishment  was  most 
savage,  and  as  late  as  1726  a  murderess,  Katherine  Hayes,  was  burned 
alive  at  the  stake,  violence  on  the  high-ways  was  very  common  and 
travel  was  unsafe.     Puritanism  was  dead  and  Methodism  not  yet  born. 

Beginning  with  the  middle  of  the  century,  a  remarkable  series  of 
inventions,  such  as  those  by  Arkwright,  Hargraves,  and  Cartwright 
was  made,  by  which  automatic  machinery  was  introduced  as  a  substitute 
for  hand  labor  in  the  manfacture  of  cotton  and  woolen  cloth.  In  1769 
the  steam  engine  was  put  into  use  by  Watt,  in  1769  the  spinning  frame 
was  invented,  in  1787  the  power  loom,  and  in  1793  the  cottbn-gin.  The 
machinery,  thus  introduced,  was  too  expensive  and  its  use  involved 


43 

too  large  an  outlay  for  raw  material  and  for  disposing  of  the  finished 
product  to  make  it  available  for  the  independent  artisan.     It  was  neces- 
sary for  the  laborer  to  come  into  the  wage  system,  and  it  was  largely 
to  meet  this  situation,  that  factories  came  into  existence.     By  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  all  four  steps  essential  to  the  growth 
of  the  factory  system  had  been  taken — the  introduction  of  automatic 
machinery,  the  application  of  steam  as  a  motive  force,  improved  methods 
of  transportation,  and  the  grouping  of  workers  in  industrial  centers. 
The  establishment  of  factories  had,  therefore,  been  carried  on  with 
astounding  rapidity  from  1775  to  1800.    Now  the  grouping  of  workers 
together  under  one  roof  created  bonds  of  social  unity  which  had  hitherto 
been  unknown.     Common  needs,  grievances,  and  plans  began  to  be 
subjects  of  discussion  among  the  new  groups  thus  formed.    At  the 
same  time,  also,  as  a  sense  of  comradeship  arose,  there  came  an  in- 
creased need  for  united  social  action  and  for  relief  and  protection  of  the 
helpless    worker   as   an   individual.    The   craftsman   became   himself 
largely  reduced  to  the  position  of  a  machine — the  laborer  who  works 
in  a  modern  shoe  factory  feeding  an  automatic  sole-cutting  machine 
cannot  have  the  mental  vision  of  the  ancient  shoemaker,  unless  he  have 
leisure  for  recreation  and  study  outside  of  the  daily  routine.    The 
independence  of  the  worker  was  largely  destroyed.    He  became  depen- 
dent upon  his  employer  for  his  very  subsistence  and  found  himself  a  tool 
which  the  master  could  pick  up  or  discard  at  will.     Submitting  constantly 
to  the  authority  of  another,  he  did  not  have  the  initiative  nor  the  under- 
standing which  comes  from  the  free  exercise  of  one's  own  powers.    He 
had  no  trade  to  support  him  when  discharged  or  "laid  off,"  for  he  had 
learned  only  the  running  of  a  specific  machine  in  the  mill.    The  former 
reliance  of  the  individual  was,  therefore,  cut  off.    Yet,  while  a  vague 
feeling  of  social  unity  and  responsibility,  one  for  the  other,  arose  among 
the  workers,  the  methods  of  voluntary  organization  were  not  perfected 
until  well  into  the  nineteenth  century. 

Meanwhile,  in  the  period  we  are  studying,  the  individual  mill  laborer 
was  left  largely  unprotected,  except  as  the  sympathies  of  co-workers 
or  of  charity  visitors  might  supply  needs  in  times  of  unusual  distress. 
"The  old  group  morality  had  this  in  its  favor — it  recognized  an  obUga- 
tion  of  the  strong  to  the  weak,  of  the  group  for  each  member.  The 
cash  basis  seemed  to  banish  all  responsibility  and  to  assert  the  law  of 
'each  for  himself'  as  the  supreme  law  of  life — except  in  so  far  as  indi- 
viduals might  mitigate  suffering  by  voluntary  kindness."^ 

1  Dewey  &  Tufts:  Ethics,  p.  160. 


44 

Laborers  were  often  en  masse  sodden  and  sluggish,  and  abuses  of 
their  rights,  meekly  submitted  to,  grew  ever  more  brazen  and  cruel. 
"Such  was  the  zest  attending  the  operation  of  the  first  great  factories 
that  small  regard  was  apt  to  be  paid  to  the  welfare  of  employes."  Un- 
like the  slaves  of  America,  they  had  neither  "fresh  air,  substantial 
-ood,  nor  hours  for  rest  and  recreation."'  Children  of  tender  years 
were  worked  to  death  by  unfeeling  employers  whose  minds  were  centered 
wholly  on  the  economic  returns  of  their  investments.  Factories,  as 
first  instituted,  had  to  be  placed  where  water  power  was  available, 
and  there  labor  was  often  scarce  or  k  eking.  To  supply  this  gap,  manu- 
factures were  allowed  to  engage  workhouse  children,  undertaking  to 
feed  and  keep  them  during  the  five  years  indentured.  This  was  nothing 
less  than  child  slavery.  Ill  fed,  uneducated,  working  for  long  hours, 
cuffed  and  flogged,  often  laboring  in  mud  and  in  mines,  they  yet  had 
no  redress  because  of  the  lack  of  public  knowledge  and  interest  and 
the  non-development  of  social  organization  among  the  workers  them- 
selves. In  general,  the  first  factory  laborers,  adults  as  well  as  children, 
were  dulled  in  initiative  by  their  monotonous  and  confining  work,  and 
incapacitated  for  working  out  their  own  physical,  intellectual  or  moral 
betterment.  The  mill  hand  was  separated  from  the  land,  from  capital, 
from  any  active  connection  with  the  administration  of  industry  and 
even  from  any  probable  opportunity  for  himself  or  his  children  of  rising 
out  of  the  laboring  class.^ 

For  the  great  mass  of  factory  operatives,  the  individual  ideals  of 
a  former  generation  had  broken  down.  "The  conditions  of  industrial 
life  tore  up  the  individual  from  the  roots  by  which  he  normally  received 
strength,  and  crowded  the  workers  together  in  masses,  thus  generating  a 
confusion,  which  no  individual  activity  could  grapple  with.  To  stand 
by  and  applaud  the  efforts  of  the  individual  who  was  sinking  deeper, 
seemed  diabolical."^  The  worker  possessed  neither  the  power  nor  the 
intelligence  to  carve  out  his  own  destiny  for  himself.  The  thought  of 
his  own  needs  and  wrongs,  and  the  injustice  of  it  all  rather  obscured  a 
blind  faith  in  a  God  who  was  taking  care  of  all  things.  He  found  him- 
self powerless  in  his  own  strength  and  began  to  wonder  if  there  were 
no  earthly  means  to  save  him  from  his  plight.  The  crying  baby  called 
the  mother's  mind  from  thoughts  of  the  other  world  to  attention  to 
the  present. 

2  Ogg,  F.  A. :  Social  Progress  in  Contemporary  Europe,  p.  98. 

3  Cheyney,  Edwar  P. :  Introd.  to  the  Indus.  &"  Social  Life  ofEng.y  p.  238. 
♦  Ellis,  Havelock:  Task  of  Social  Hygiene,  p.  3. 


i 


45 

Again,  the  institution  of  the  factory  tended  to  destroy  for  the  opera- 
tives the  old-fashioned  home  life  they  had  known  in  the  rural  districts. 
Whereas,  previously,  the  women  and  children  had  done  most  of  their 
work  within  their  own  threshold,  even  the  mothers  now  answered  the 
call  of  the  machines.  The  children  were  sent  in  as  soon  as  they  were 
old  enough  to  do  any  of  the  required  work,  often  at  seven  or  eight  years 
of  age.  The  hours  of  labor  were  frequently  fourteen  hours  a  day  and 
in  some  cases  still  longer.  Lunch  was  eaten  at  the  factory,  and  even 
at  the  other  meals  the  full  family  circle  did  not  gather  as  all  were  not 
working  on  the  same  shifts.  The  father  came  home  worn  with  the 
day's  toil — a  fact  not  conducive  to  the  continuance  of  the  old  family 
worship.  The  youngsters,  after  the  dull  monotony  of  the  day's  task, 
craved  excitement  and  tended  to  be  led  into  the  vicious  pleasures  Puri- 
tanism had  abhorred.  The  deeply  devout,  religious  life,  in  the  midst  of 
which  the  concept  of  eternal  salvation  had  held  sway,  could  not  flourish 
in  such  an  atmosphere.  Gambling  and  drink  became  extremely  preva- 
lent in  the  new  industrial  communities.  TJie  demoralization  was  great 
when  ignorant,  healthy,  country  lads  found  themselves  in  cities  whose  y 
coarseness  ^fTifS^anJmorals  is  described  with  distressing  realism  by 
Defoe,  Fielding,  and  Swif t.^^  The  factory  hand  felt  that  he  had  no  time 
©r'Snergy  l^for  offering  lengthy  private  prayers,  nor  for  listening  to 
sermons  of  Puritan  bulk.  The  smaller  group  of  the  home  circle  was 
broken  up,  and  men  entered  the  larger  industrial  group  which  had  not 
yet  come  to  consciousness  of  itseK.  Just  as  in  America  now,  we  hear 
much  about  the  need  of  the  rehabilitation  of  the  home,  shattered  by  the 
rush  and  tear  of  city  life  and  swallowed  up  amidst  tremendous  economic 
agencies,  so  the  appearance  of  the  factory  with  its  unrestricted  hours 
of  labor  and  with  the  huddling  together  in  miserable  quarters  tended 
to  destroy  the  sancity  of  the  home.  And  with  the  home  went  all  of 
those  sterner  virtues  which  rigid  discipline  had  once  inculcated. 

We  are  apt  to  think  of  the  building  of  a  city,  to  meet  the  needs  of 
a  large  industrial  concern,  to  be  an  audacious  plan  undreamed-of  before 
the  twentieth  century.  The  story  of  Gary,  Indiana,  now  a  city  of 
30,000,  brought  into  being  suddenly  at  the  behest  of  a  steel  corporation, 
is  cited  as  an  example  of  the  tremendous  schemes  of  modern  finance. 
Yet  we  have  there  just  an  illustration,  on  a  larger  scale,  of  a  necessary 
accompaniment  of  the  foundation  of  factories.  Each  became  the 
nucleus  of  a  village  in  itself,  or  else,  locating  in  the  midst  of  a  town 
already  large,  served  to  create  the  boom  always  present  in  a  city  whose 
industries  are  rapidly  developing.    Now,  the  sudden  influx  of  wage- 


r^NIVJ?.  ^-31T 


46 

earners  into  a  town  where  a  factory  was  building  meant  that  the  pro- 
visions for  their  reception  were  wholly  inadequate.  Improper  water 
supply  and  drainage  facilities  were  common  and  scarcity  of  living  places 
meant  high  rents  and  the  use  of  insanitary  quarters.  In  the  country, 
a  lack  of  fresh  air  had  been  unknown,  and,  if  there  were  an  addition 
to  the  family,  the  father  could  put  on  an  extra  room  through  the  use 
of  his  own  simple  knowledge  of  carpentering.  In  the  city,  the  indi- 
vidual was  immensely  more  a  slave  to  conditions  over  which  he  had  little 
or  no  control.  As  the  servant  of  a  great  industry  he  could  only  say, 
"My  own  strength  is  not  enough — I  need  the  help  of  my  fellows  and  of 
the  state,  if  my  most  fundamental  rights  and  barest  elements  of  hap- 
piness are  to  be  preserved  for  me."  Manifestly  today,  the  need  for 
social  relief  and  for  measures  protecting  the  individual  is  tremendously 
more  urgent  in  our  cities  than  in  the  rural  districts.  The  cry  "Back 
to  the  land"  is  a  realization  that  no  such  distress  could  exist  in  the 
country  as  we  find  in  our  cities.  Rural  life  needs  much  effort  and 
thought  in  its  direction  in  order  to  make  it  beautiful  and  soul-enlarging, 
but  it  scarcely  known  the  depths  of  hunger,  disease  and  misery  that 
big  centers  show.  The  growth  of  cities,  therefore,  suddenly^  at  the 
time  of  the  first  installation  of  industrial  plants,  both  created  the  need 
for  social  reUef  and  slowly  and  painfully  generated  the  realization  of 
that  need  as  appearing  in  social  ideals. 

In  our  study  of  the  social  unrest  from  1760  to  1800,  undue  pre- 
eminence among  the  causal  factors  must  not  be  given  to  the  change 
in  industrial  conditions.  For  movements  of  vast  significance  were 
occurring  in  the  political  and  governmental  realm.  The  secession  of 
the  American  colonies  was,  in  many  respects,  a  severe  blow  to  the  old 
individualistic  ethics.  It  was  in  one  sense  the  most  stupendous  move- 
ment for  social  reform  the  world  had  yet  seen,  and  it  was  to  be  followed 
almost  immediately  by  an  even  more  terrific  upheaval  in  the  demand 
of  the  people  of  France  for  a  government  which  would  serve  them.  Wars 
innumerable  are  recorded  in  history,  but  they  have  been  largely  wars 
of  conquest,  wars  to  satisfy  the  vaulting  ambition  of  imperial  potentates, 
or  wars  to  throw  off  the  yoke  of  a  hated  invader.  No  such  motives 
prompted  the  mighty  conflicts  of  1776  and  1789.  In  those  cases,  the 
basal  factors  were  economic  and  social.  The  war  cries  "No  taxation 
without  representation"  and  "Liberty,  Equahty,  Fraternity"  are  not 
the  cries  of  demagogues,  but  of  whole  peoples  standing  for  ethical  prin- 
ciples. They  are  not  the  philosophy  of  the  study,  but  of  the  street. 
They  are  not  the  mottoes  of  charitable  philanthropists,  but  the  spon- 


47 

taneous  demands  of  needy  multitudes  come  to  a  comprehension  of 
their  own  needs. 

The  loss  of  the  American  colonies  caused  the  English  nation  to  stop 
and  think.  Evidently  kings  did  not  rule  by  divine  right,  nor  an  aris- 
tocracy hold  its  prestige  as  the  elect  of  God.  The  demand  of  a  whole 
people,  when  united,  was  invincible — neither  kings  nor  lords  could 
stand  in  their  way.  Reforms  could  evidently  be  effected  through  a 
common  social  conscience  awakened.  England  began  to  study  the 
corruption  of  her  own  social  fabric.  She  found  the  nation  had  been 
weakened  by  a  riot  of  profligacy  and  gambling  between  the  years  1772-6.^ 
She  saw  her  colonies  had  been  mismanaged  and  unjustly  bled.  She 
learned  that  pride  and  arrogance  on  the  part  of  ruling  classes  could  not 
build  up  a  national  structure  which  would  endure.  The  vision  was 
opened  that  nations  might  stand  for  moral  principles  and  that  a  united 
people  might  fashion  its  own  government  in  the  interests  of  the  many. 

Of  considerable  significance  for  our  study,  was  the  fact  that  the 
popular  demand  included  the  separation  of  church  and  state  as  a  basic 
principle  in  the  estabhshment  of  the  new  republics.  The  interests 
of  a  church  seeking  always  its  own  aggrandizement  and  of  good  govern- 
ment had  not  been  found  to  coincide.  The  church  was  now  estabhshed 
as  a  voluntary  organization,  which  could  not  command  support.  The 
great  step  toward  the  complete  secularization  of  the  modern  state 
was  therein  taken.  A  successful  state  had  been  launched  on  the  basis 
of  complete  religious  liberty.  A  great  blow  was  struck  at  the  .preten- 
sions of  the  church  groups  to  be  sole  holders  of  the  keys  of  salvation. 
The  new  state  plainly  put  as  the  first  and  foremost  factor  of  life,  not 
the  saving  of  the  soul  for  another  world,  but  the  well-being  of  her  citi- 
zens today.  There  was  tacit  admission  that  the  church  was  not  the 
exclusive  and  perhaps  not  even  the  most  effectual  organization  for 
social  ameUoration.  England  saw  that  religious  convictions  did  not 
justly  bar  one  from  the  privileges  inherently  his  own  in  his  rights 
as  a  man.  Accordingly  one  by  one,  the  "Disabilities"  were  removed. 
Legal  toleration  was  granted  to  the  Unitarians  in  1813,  but  they  were 
not  given  full  rights  of  citizenship  till  the  forties.  If  it  had  not  been 
for  the  opposition  of  King  George  III,  the  Catholics  might  have  been 
freed  from  their  disabilities  by  1800,  but  the  measure,  though  advocated 
by  Burke  and  favored  by  Pitt,  was  not  carried  till  1829.  No  Jew  was 
admitted  to  the  House  of  Lords  till  1858;  and  it  was  not  until  1871 
that  the  last  legal  discrimination  on  religious  grounds  was  removed 

6  Overton,  J.  H.:  The  English  Church  (1714-1800),  p.  224  ff. 


48 

and  Dissenters  were  admitted  to  the  universities.  The  complete  sepa- 
ration of  church  and  state  in  America  and  the  gradual  secularization 
of  the  government  in  England  brought  home  to  all,  that  moral  duty  did 
not  lie  only  in  virtuous  actions  toward  fellow  members  in  a  religious 
group,  but  toward  all  one's  neighbors,  Jew,  Gentile,  or  barbarian.  Dis- 
crimination by  legal  authority  had  been  a  strong  bulwark  of  sectarian 
bitterness. 

The  French  Revolution  made  an  even  deeper  impression  upon  Eng- 
lish thought  than  did  the  revolt  of  the  American  colonies.  At  first, 
the  rejoicing  liberals  of  England  hailed  with  delight  the  victory  of  the 
*'  rights  of  man  "  which  had  been  gained  at  Paris.  A  sure  hope  of  success 
was  inspired  in  the  minds  of  the  reformers  of  England  by  the  easy  vin- 
dication of  their  liberties  by  the  heavily  oppressed  people  of  France. 
However,  when  fearful  atrocities  followed  swiftly,  committed  by  the 
new  sons  of  freedom,  and  the  new  republic  began  wantonly  to  desecrate 
the  rights  of  other  nations,  English  feeling  experienced  a  sudden  revul- 
sion. "France  combined  against  herself  the  abhorrence  of  all  classes 
of  politicians — from  those  on  the  one  extreme  who  feared  the  undue 
power  of  the  populace  to  those  on  the  other  whose  apprehensions  pointed 
wholly  to  the  excessive  authority  of  the  government. "®  The  English — 
aristocrat  and  democrat  alike — set  to  work  whole-heartedly  to  accom- 
plish the  overthrow  of  the  Emperor  Napoleon.  But  with  the  final 
coming  of  peace,  the  cause  of  Democracy  was  seen  to  have  been  pro- 
foundly strengthened  by  these  terrible  martial  struggles.  Even  the 
judicial  code  of  Napoleon  had  taught  equaUty  before  the  law.  His 
overthrow  of  countless  princes  taught  a  lower  estimate  than  had  hitherto 
prevailed  of  the  sacredness  of  royal  blood.  His  administration  of 
Italy,  Germany,  and  Spain  emphasized  the  excellence  of  unity  and 
self-government.  His  rude  assault  had  been  a  fatal  blow  to  privilege 
and  unjust  perference  of  one  class  over  its  fellows,  and  throughout 
Europe,  a  desire  for  seK-government  had  spread  through  the  lower  orders 
of  the  people.  Plainly,  inhuman  neglect  of  the  rights  of  man,  unjust 
and  cruel  oppression  of  the  lower  classes,  could  only  in  the  end  bring  a 
harvest  of  vengeance  and  ruin.  Written  in  blood  were  the  lessons  of 
the  dignity  of  the  human  reason  and  of  the  rights  of  all  men  against 
tyranny  in  any  form.  The  doctrine  of  equality  enjoyed  considerable 
vogue  even  in  conservative  England — wigs  and  swords  began  to  dis- 
appear. The  industrial  democracy  of  England  welcomed  the  ideas 
that  were  spreading  not  only  in  France,  but  throughout  Europe. 

•Mackenzie,  R.:  The  19th  Century,  p.  102. 


CHAPTER  VII 

The  Spread  of  Methodism 

It  was  the  unsocial  character  of  religion,  the  selfishness  of  its  luxury- 
loving  prelates  and  the  hollow  insincerity  of  its  formal  professions  that 
awoke  John  Wesley,  at  the  time  of  his  conversion  in  1738,  to  study 
anew  the  conditions  of  salvation.  His  intense  devotion  to  God  and 
love  for  men  made  all  theological  bickering  seem  to  him  mean  and 
small.  The  Methodism  he  founded  was  preeminently  a  revolt  against 
a  reUgion  which  considered  its  essence  to  be  the  understanding  and 
acceptance  of  dogmas.  This  revival  and  the  following  Evangelical 
movement  are  the  expressions  of  the  shift  within  religious  life  from 
intellectual  to  practical  Christianity,  from  the  theological  to  the  devo- 
tional and  vitally  ethjlcal. 

"Go  on,  gentlemen,"  John  Wesley  wrote  to  the  Deists  in  a  letter  to 
Dr.  Middleton,  "and  prosper.  Shame  these  nominal  Christians  out 
of  that  poor  superstition  which  they  call  Christianity.  Reason,  raUy, 
laugh  them  out  of  their  dead  empty  forms,  void  of  spirit,  of  faith  and 
love.  .  .  .  And  then,  He,  Whom  neither  they  nor  you  know  now, 
shall  rise  and  gird  Himself  with  strength  and  go  forth  in  his  almighty 
love  and  sweetly  conquer  you  altogether. " 

The  Oxford  Methodists  drew  together  not  on  the  basis  of  a  common 
creed,  but  of  a  common  need.  They  were  united  not  in  doctrine,  but 
in  prayers,  worship,  loyal  fellowship,  and  practical  charity.  Their 
purposes  still  remained,  as  they  felt,  ultimately  other-worldly,  but 
theirs  was  a  social  other-worldliness,  as  opposed  to  the  Puritan  personal 
and  selfish  other-worldUness.  The  strength  of  Puritanism  had  been 
largely  in  the  middle  classes,  since  it  could  appeal  strongly  only  to 
those  who  could  read  and  know  the  Scriptures  for  themselves,  who  felt 
themselves  sufficiently  blessed  to  be  regarded  among  God's  chosen  and 
who  were  not  so  burdened  with  daily  toil  or  privations,  but  what  they 
could  become  interested  in  doctrinal  discussion.  Nor  had  Deism  really 
made  any  deep  impress  upon  the  thinking  of  laboring  men.  Dogmatic 
disputes  had  never  reached  the  mining  population  of  Kingswood;  but 
even  for  these,  Methodism  felt  that  it  carried  a  burning  message.  Wes- 
ley conceived  that  no  man  was  truly  redeemed,  unless  he  was  filled 
with  a  tremendous  desire  and  yearning  to  lead  his  fellows  also  to  partake 
in  the  saving  grace  of  Christ.     Into  Ireland,  into  Scotland,  even  into 


50 

the  Continent  and  America,  the  Oxford  group  entered,  seeking  to  find 
in  their  labors  of  love  the  vitally  religious  life  they  craved. 

The  movement  Wesley  had  started  became  the  center  of  a  great 
enthusiasm  for  man,  though  chiefly  on  the  religious  side,  it  is  true. 
Human  life  came  to  be  valued,  because  every  human  being  was  a  son 
of  God,  capable  of  eternal  life.  Like  the  Roman  CathoHc  church,  but 
unlike  the  common  tendencies  in  Protestantism,  the  Methodist  church 
became  a  pure  democracy,  recognizing  all  men  as  equal  before  Christ. 
Indeed,  its  insistence  upon  the  universahty  of  God's  salvation,  binding 
all  men  together,  gave  the  revival  such  an  aggressively  popular  character 
that  it  aroused  cynical  and  even  bitter  opposition  in  the  upper  classes. 
The  inauguration  and  encouragement  of  lay  preaching  meant  the  refusal 
to  recognize  even  the  privileges  of  a  priesthood  as  exclusive. 

"The  lay  ministry  raised  up  hundreds  of  men  so  intensely  in  earnest 
that  they  became  educated  men  before  their  ministry  was  nearly  over. 
.  .  .  These  Methodist  working  men  sprang,  by  dint  of  conscience  and 
mental  power,  into  the  forefront  of  the  great  world's  international 
battle.  What  part  the  chapel  played  in  preparing  the  English  working 
man's  mind  for  that  struggle  can  only  be  a  matter  of  opinion,  but  in 
our  judgment  it  was  a  chief  factor,  though  a  neglected  factor,  in  the 
exciting  story  of  England's  industrial  development."^ 

What  one  such  man  could  do  for  the  betterment  of  his  own  class  is 
shown  by  the  case  of  Mr.  Joseph  Arch  who 

*'is  a  local  Methodist  preacher  and  he  is  organizer  and  head  of  the 
Agricultural  Laborer's  Union,  which  has  done  more  to  improve  the 
condition  of  the  EngUsh  peasant  than  ony  other  agency." 

The  class-meeting  idea,  which  came  into  Methodism  chiefly  from 
contact  with  the  Moravians,  presented  as  its  most  noticeable  feature 
an  utter  absence  of  any  note  of  class  distinction.  These  simple  reli- 
gious gatherings  especially  contributed  toward  the  inculcating  of  social 
sympathies,  in  that  they  developed  a  sense  of  personal  responsibility 
to  God  for  one's  neighbor.  It  was  fortunate  indeed  that,  when  the 
shift  in  industrial  conditions  was  threating  to  unbalance  society,  bonds 
of  a  tender  sort  were  being  formed  in  religious  fellowship  throughout 
the  working  classes  who,  neglected,  might  have  fallen  into  bitter  dis- 
satisfaction and  anarchy.  We  have  seen  how  the  sudden  transfer  of 
masses  of  the  population  from  the  fields  to  the  city  without  slow  process 
of  adjustment  portended,  as  in  France,  danger  and  bloodshed;  oppor- 
tunely, Methodism  stood  ready,  where  it  was  accepted,  to  reorganize 
the  new  life.      The  Tory  Squire  and  Church  of  England  parson  had 

^  Hall,  T.  C:  Social  Meaning  of  Mod.  Relig.  Movements  in  Eng.,  p.  66. 


51 

held  themselves  on  a  superior  plane,  above  their  humble  parishioners 
and  had  made  little  effort  after  that  heart  to  heart  contact  with  their 
flock  which  breeds  mutual  love.  The  Methodist  class  leader,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  one  of  his  people,  praying  with  them  and  seeking  to 
give  of  himself  to  minister  to  those  in  his  care  in  sorrow  as  well  as  in  joy, 
and  in  need  more  especially  than  in  plenty.  To  quote  from  Thorold 
Rogers: 

**I  have  often  found  the  whole  character  of  a  country  parish  changed 
for  the  better  by  those  rustic  missionaries.  ...  I  believe  it  is  true 
that  all  successful  religious  movements  have  aimed  at  heightening  the 
morality  and  improving  the  material  condition  of  those  they  have 
striven  to  influence.  "^ 

Just  this  vital  religious  touch  was  the  crying  need,  if  religion  was 
to  redeem  itself  among  the  poorer  classes  after  the  coldness  and  insin- 
cerity of  the  Georgian  ecclesiastics.  Partly  a  result  of  the  awakening 
of  the  lower  classes  to  self-assertion,  partly  a  stimulus  to  its  develop- 
ment, the  arrogance  of  the  aristocracy  of  England  was  excessive  during 
this  period.  There  was  no  time  in  England's  history  when  English  nobles' 
pride  was  more  obstrusive  than  from  1750  to  1785.  ''Noble  youth 
found  a  satisfaction  in  street  outrages  and  indecencies,  noble  age,  in 
vaporing  about  the  privileges  of  the  peers  and  in  attempts  to  constitute 
themselves  a  limited  order.  "^  A  deep  gulf  between  the  rich  and  the 
poor,  dug  in  bitterness  and  hatred,  was  sorely  threatening,  but  the 
Methodist  class  meeting  did  much  to  turn  unworthy  passions  into  a 
deep-rooted  religious  sympathy. 

Furthermore,  the  class  meeting  did  a  great  deal  to  raise  up  leaders 
to  be  the  voices  of  the  masses  in  the  coming  order.  These  leaders 
gradually  educated  themselves  in  keeping  with  the  dignity  of  their 
profession  and,  in  virtue  of  the  beauty  of  the  lives  they  lived  and  message 
they  preached,  refined  in  outward  manners  as  well  as  in  spirit.  The 
estabhshed  hierarchy  had  failed  to  educate  its  own  citizens  in  leadership 
and  constructive  thought.  The  lessons  of  self-control,  self-discipHne, 
and  self-government  had  to  be  learned  outside  of  the  State  Church 
in  the  Methodist  chapels.  They  were  training  schools  to  fit  the  work- 
ing men  of  England  for  the  poUtical  life  which  was  just  beginning  for 
them.  Many  of  them  learned  not  only  the  arts  of  speaking  but  also 
the  art  of  organization.  Five  members  of  the  House  of  Commons 
in  1900,  who  were  miners,  were  all  trained  in  the  Methodist  Church. 

"^  Work  and  Wages,  p.  516. 

» Rogers,  T.:  Work  and  Wages,  p.  473. 


52 

The  day  of  the  people  was  at  hand.  Leaders  were  certain  to  arise 
according  to  the  very  force  of  circumstances.  In  France,  they  cried 
for  revenge  and  destruction.  How  fortunate  that  in  England  leaders 
had  been  educated  from  the  ranks  of  the  toilers  who  saw  the  ultimate 
good  of  all  would  lie  in  molding  rather  than  in  melting  the  social  order! 
How  fortunate  that  the  masses  could  see  that,  with  competent  men  from 
their  own  number  working  even  in  parliament  for  their  interests,  vio- 
lence might  not  help,  but  hinder! 

In  fact,  the  whole  manner  of  life  of  those  who  came  under  the  new 
religious  influence  was  refined  thereby.  The  rough  horse-play  of  the 
lower  strata  of  English  society,  at  times  shading  over  into  the  coarse 
and  heartless,  was  in  large  measure  deterred  from  culminating  in  the 
unfeeling  and  merciless  brutahty  soon  to  appear  in  the  French  masses. 
The  church  undertook  a  system  of  simple  instruction  in  the  three  R's 
in  order  that  her  members  might  study  the  bible  and  prove  more  useful 
citizens  in  the  community.  The  hymns  of  Watts  and  of  the  Wesleys, 
as  sung  from  a  consecrated  heart,  lightened  the  burden  of  daily  toil 
and  sanctified  it. 

''The  Methodists  went  below  the  third  estate;  they  spoke  to  the  very 
lowest  of  the  population.  .  .  .  Methodism  invested  them  with  a 
greater  power  than  did  the  Revolution  those  it  lifted  from  the  abyss. 
.  .  .  Supposing  this  movement  had  been  confined  to  the  poorest  in 
society,  it  would  still  have  been  of  the  greatest  significance.  .  .  .  But 
a  sense  of  their  need  of  the  Infinite  and  Eternal  .  .  .  was  awakened  in 
numbers  of  the  upper  classes.  ...  A  number  of  persons,  who  had 
cared  little  for  any  interests  but  their  own  class  or  private  interests, 
began  to  think  of  the  greatest  number.  .  .  .  Many  who  had  an  intense 
dislike  to  Methodism,  .  .  .  yet  spoke  in  their  own  way  of  an  Eternal 
and  Infinite  Being,  all-good  and  benevolent,  who  was  seeking  the  greatest 
happiness  of  His  creatures.  "^ 

From  its  very  inception,  Methodism  has  strongly  devoted  efforts 
towards  the  relief  of  the  poor  and  of  unfortunates  confined  in  institutions. 
The  little  band  at  Oxford  in  1730  made  it  one  of  the  rules  which  they 
followed  so  methodically  as  to  earn  their  own  title  therefrom,  that 
they  should  regularly  visit  the  sick  and  the  inmates  of  the  prisons. 
Another  rule  which  they  followed  scrupulously  commanded  them  to 
give  away  to  the  poor  everything  not  needed  for  their  own  necessities. 
To  be  sure,  their  charity  was  still  Puritanical  in  its  sternness  and  no 
effort  was  made  to  bring  pleasures  or  the  beauties  of  art  into  barren 
lives.     It  was  also  thoroughly  unscientific  and  did  not  aim  to  secure 

*  Maurice,  F.  D.:  Moral  and  Metaph.  Phil.,  II,  p.  667-8. 


better  economic  conditions  or  reform  legislation  with  a  view  to  removing 
the  underlying  causes  of  misery.  But  John  Wesley's  social  sympathies 
were  broad  and  deep,  even  if  not,  from  the  expert  point  of  view,  en- 
lightened, and  in  view  of  the  great  variety  of  movements  for  pubUc 
good  in  which  he  interested  himself,  he  easily  stands  as  the  Father  of 
modern  socialized  Christianity.  To  auote  his  own  words: 
**Now  that  Ufe  tends  most  to  the  glory  of  God  wherein  we  most  promote 
holiness  in  ourselves  and  others;  I  say  ourselves  and  others,  as  being 
fully  persuaded  that  these  can  never  be  put  asunder."^ 

Wherever  Wesley's  message  touched  the  hearts  of  men,  it  awakened 
a  new  watchfulness  toward  the  cruel  wrongs  under  which  great  numbers 
of  men  struggled,  and  a  sense  of  personal  obligation  to  give  of  oneself 
toward  their  amelioration.  An  extensive  system  of  poor  relief  was 
organized  and  every  member  of  his  societies  was  called  upon  to  con- 
tribute a  penny  a  week.  More  potent  than  words,  was  the  force  of  his 
own  example,  for  throughout  his  entire  ministry,  he  lived  on  £28  a 
year  and  gave  the  rest  of  his  income  away.  In  fact,  his  total  bene- 
factions amounted  to  more  than  $150,000,  a  sum  which,  considering 
his  moderate  means,  far  surpassed  the  munificence  of  a  Carnegie.  His 
great  sermon  on  the  "Use  of  Money"  laid  three  injunctions  upon  his  follow- 
ers: (1)  Make  all  you  can;  (2)  Save  all  you  can;  (3)  Give  all  you  can. 

Wesley's  loan  bank  for  the  poor  which  he  organized  in  London 
in  1746  seems  to  have  been  the  first  benevolent  loan  fund  ever  estab- 
hshed,  whose  benefits  were  not  confined  solely  to  the  members  of  a  closed 
society.  Again,  Wesley  instituted  the  first  free  medical  dispensary 
of  which  we  have  any  record  in  history.  In  several  places,  he  founded 
hospitals,  having  found  that  it  was  less  expensive  to  care  for  the  sick 
in  the  midst  of  proper  equipment  than  in  their  own  homes.  But  the 
great  unselfish  work  for  which  the  name  of  Wesley  is  especially  blessed 
was  his  devoted  espousal  of  the  cause  of  free  education  for  poor  children. 
Throughout  England,  he  found  thousands  of  children  allowed  by  a 
sleeping  nation  to  grow  up  under  vicious  influences,  because  their  parents 
were  unable  to  clothe  them  and  pay  the  tuition  required  in  the  schools. 
Ingham  gathered  together  the  children  of  the  villages  around  Oxford 
and  sought  to  teach  them  their  letters.  If  the  Methodist  Revival 
had  done  naught  else  for  the  cause  of  social  righteousness  save  this 
popularizing  of  education  for  the  masses,  its  contribution  would  still 
have  been  momentous.  No  claim  is  made  that  Methodism  inaugurated 
the  modern  secular  system  of  education.    Two  of  the  rules  in  the  charity 

6  Wesley,  J. :  Journal,  p.  122. 


54 

schools  founded  by  Wesley  read  as  follows:  (1)  No  play  days  nor  picnics 
granted,  (2)  All  must  listen  to  a  daily  sermon.  Like  the  Puritan,  Wesley 
dreaded  the  profane  and  sought  only  meat  for  the  soul;  but  unHke  the 
Puritan,  he  saw  that  general  education  would  be  a  means  toward  the 
entrance  of  the  Hght  of  truth  into  the  souls  of  masses  hitherto  in  dark- 
ness. The  end  and  aim  of  education  was  largely  the  gaining  of  an 
adequate  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures,  but  the  contribution  of  the 
Revival  was  its  insistence  that  the  privilege  of  such  elementary  educa- 
tion should  be  extended  to  the  humblest  child.  The  caste  system, 
whereby  the  children  of  laborers  could  not  rise  above  the  social  station 
of  their  fathers  through  the  denial  to  them  of  the  opportunity  of  school" 
ing,  was  broken  down.  Those  hungry  ones,  to  whom  the  new  taste  of 
a  wider  life  was  opened  up  through  the  acquirement  of  the  ability  to 
read,  made  use  of  their  advantages  as  only  those,  who  have  known 
privation,  can  do.  ''The  eagerness  of  the  Methodists  to  read  trans- 
formed illiterate  communities  into  such  absorbers  of  literature  that 
publishing  houses  existed  solely  from  this  demand."^ 

With  pohtics  and  with  the  condition  of  laborers  in  industry,  Metho- 
dism undertook  little  or  no  interference.  Wesley  did,. however,  protest 
against  corruption  in  the  management  of  public  affairs.  And  in  his 
diary  he  made  many  notes  upon  the  social  conditions  of  the  places 
he  visited  during  the  250,000  miles  covered  by  his  travels.  He  often 
described  the  poverty  of  the  people,  the  conditions  of  the  roads,  the 
shift  of  population  and  the  insanitary  states  of  the  towns.  He  saw 
that  the  great  permanent  step  towards  social  betterment  would  be  in 
providing  for  all  labor  that  should  pay  a  living  wage,  even  though  h  e 
did  not  agitate  for  national  legislation  upon  the  subject.  In  a  small  wa  y 
only  he  formed  his  plans,  and  in  1740  he  converted  the  Society  Room 
in  London  into  a  carding,  spinning,  and  knitting  factory  in  order  that 
work  might  be  provided  for  needy  women. 

Finally,  included  in  the  Methodist  Revival,  was  the  awakening  of 
the  pubHc  conscience  to  the  slave  trade  and  to  the  virtue  in  Christian 
missions.  Wesley,  himself,  wrote  a  pamphlet  of  53  pages  which  had  a 
tremendous  circulation  both  in  Europe  and  America  and  which  character- 
ized the  buying  and  selling  of  the  bodies  of  men  as  "  that  execrable  sum 
of  all  villainies. "  Members  of  his  societies  were  forbidden  to  engage 
in  the  slave  trade.  But  especially  enduring,  has  been  the  interest 
which  Methodism  stimulated  in  missions  founded  for  the  social  re- 
organization of  the  world.     Rough  Yorkshire  laboring  men  heard  for 

^  Hall,  T.  C:  Social  and  Relig.  Movements  in  Eng.,  p.  60. 


55 

the  first  time  the  message  of  the  brotherhood  of  man,  and  thousands 
listened  eagerly  while  Whitefield  pleaded  for  the  colonies  and  planta- 
tions where  men  were  needed  to  do  and  die  for  Christ.  Nothing  could 
have  been  more  wholesome  for  the  narrow  outlook  of  the  British  laborer 
than  his  humble,  prayerful,  yearning  interest  in  the  representatives 
he  sent  out  to  preach  a  gospel  of  love  and  sympathy. 

The  effect  of  the  missionary  interest  among  the  Methodists  exerted 
fruitful  influence  upon  other  religious  bodies.  These  observed,  if  only 
from  a  sense  of  self-preservation,  that  it  would  not  do  to  let  the  new 
dissent  become  a  world  power  without  a  struggle  in  competition  upon 
the  part  of  the  ''old  line."  Yet  the  missionary  leaven  permeated  but 
slowly  into  some  conservative  sects,  for  even  after  Wesley's  death  the 
Church  of  Scotland  went  on  record  in  declaring  foreign  missions  a  sacri- 
legious interference  with  God's  plans.  The  missionary  enterprises  of 
Methodism  were  undertaken  solely  from  the  motive  of  saving  those 
doomed  to  a  hard  lot  in  this  world  into  a  blessedness  in  eternity.  This 
is,  of  course,  largely  the  old  "  other- worldhness,"  but  it  is  most  signi- 
ficant for  our  study  that  the  new  missions  inaugurated  a  sense  of  respon- 
sibility in  the  hearts  of  men  for  their  fellows,  no  matter  what  their  station 
or  remoteness.  The  love  was  awakened  which  in  time  was  to  see  that 
the  needs  of  men  are  not  wholly  spiritual.  The  habit  of  service  was 
formed,  which  in  later  generations  could  be  extended  into  a  brotherly 
offering  of  hands  to  meet  any  need.  Methodism  had  educated  a  large 
part  of  the  lower  classes  of  England  up  to  a  new  point  of  social  efficiency. 

"Commerce,  trade,  art,  literature,  industrial  conditions  .  .  .  had 
entered  as  factors  into  the  social  state  of  King  George  Ill's  reign.  But 
probably  no  factor  .  .  .  had  the  same  social  significance  for  the 
future  of  England's  Empire  as  the  Methodist  phase  of  the  EvangeUcal 
revival."^ 

»HaU,T.  C:  76.,  p.  74. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

The  Abolition  of  Slavery  and  the  Establishment  of  Christlan 

Missions 

''In  Elizabeth's  time,  Sir  John  Hawkins  initiated  the  slave  trade 
and  in  commemoration  of  his  achievement,  was  allowed  to  put  in  his 
coat  of  arms  a  'demi-moor,  proper  bound  with  a  cord':  — the  honor- 
ableness  of  his  action  being  thus  assumed  by  himself  and  recognized  by- 
Queen  and  public. "  In  those  days  moral  value  was  estimated  in  terms 
of  national  prosperity  and  almost  not  at  all  in  terms  of  human  happiness. 
The  habit  had  simply  not  been  formed  in  men  of  thinking,  that  each 
was  responsible  for  the  welfare  of  any  man  within  his  power  to  aid.  The 
ethical  worth  of  an  action  was  not  measured  in  terms  of  the  resulting 
gain  for  human  freedom  and  welfare.  Rather,  values  were  in  terms  of 
achievement,  determined  by  the  degree  of  mastery  over  one's  fellows. 
He  held  the  highest  niche  in  t^e  hall  of  fame,  who  was  the  strongest 
ruling  personality.  And  individual  well-being  was  as  nothing  compared 
with  national  well-being.  Religion  despised  the  individual's  life  in 
this  world  because  it  was  merely  an  atom  in  eternity;  poUtics  considered 
it  of  no  consequence  because  it  was  merely  an  atom  in  the  nation.  The 
aim  of  government  was  not  the  happiness  of  its  citizens,  but  rather 
national  prestige,  national  wealth,  national  aggrandizement.  It  was 
entirely  sufficient  justification  that  the  great  mass  of  the  common  people 
should  live  in  misery  and  die  prematurely,  if  by  that  means,  the  economic 
success  of  the  government  was  estabUshed.  Parliamentary  action, 
which  sought  to  give  greater  freedom  and  blessings  to  the  lower  class 
from  a  disinterested  love  and  respect  for  all  men,  was  almost  unknown. 
Rather,  in  governmental  ethics,  we  find  the  nation  taking  the  place 
of  the  individual  in  religious  ethics.  It  is  a  case  of  the  nation  for  itself 
irrespective  of  the  welfare  of  its  integral  parts  or  of  other  nations,  just 
as  in  Puritanical  ethics,  the  individual  soul  seeks  its  own  salvation 
regardless  of  others.  The  worth  of  the  individual's  life,  which  both 
Puritanism  and  absolutism  denied  in  this  world,  had  to  be  asserted 
before  combined  action  for  the  good  of  all  individuals — social  ethics — 
was  possible.  Now  in  the  days  when  slavery  flourished,  there  was  no 
such  attitude  of  mind.  If  slavery  contributed  to  the  economic  welfare 
of  the  nation,  as  an  institution,  not  as  composed  of  individuals,  then 
its   justification   went   unquestioned.    The   Utihtarian   standard   was 


57 

unknown  as  the  principle  of  legislation — the  end  sought  was  only  the 
power  and  prosperity  of  the  national  government.  One  is  reminded 
of  many  recent  German  utterances  upon  the  supremacy  and  sacredness 
of  ''the  State.'' 

In  England,  the  wave  of  humanitarian  feeling,  which  was  to  develop 
some  day  a  new  code  of  ethical  purposes,  first  manifested  itself  in  that 
great  religious  revival  led  by  Whitefield  and  the  Wesleys.  In  1787, 
Granville  Sharp  founded  the  original  Society  for  the  Abolition  of  the 
Slave  Trade,  a  majority  of  whose  original  twelve  members  were  Quakers. 
The  Society  at  once  began  collecting  evidence  to  show  the  barbarity 
of  the  traffic,  proving  finally  that  fifty  out  of  every  one  hundred,  crowded 
together  as  they  were,  did  not  survive  the  "Middle  Passage"  in  con- 
dition fit  to  become  efficient  laborers.  Edmund  Burke  wanted  to 
move  against  the  slave  trade  and  although  he  was  too  early,  the  noble 
appeals  which  he  made  to  the  national  conscience  called  forth  a  splendid 
response  from  the  best  in  English  life.  By  1792,  the  opposition  had 
gained  in  strength  and  Pitt  made  the  greatest  of  all  his  speeches  in 
Parliament — a  plea  for  the  blotting  out  of  slavery.  The  sympathy  of 
the  public  was  deeply  stirred.  Even  as  in  our  own  day,  the  club  women 
of  the  United  States  have  fought  with  much  success  the  system  of  sweat- 
shop labor  by  refusing  to  buy  clothing  manufactured  under  such  con- 
ditions; so  thousands  of  earnest  persons  in  England  denied  themselves 
the  use  of  any  sugar  which  had  been  cultivated  by  slave  labor.  Two 
men — Thomas  Clarkson  and  WilHam  Wilberforce — made  anti-slavery 
agitation  the  supreme  purpose  of  their  lives. 

Particularly  during  the  fifteen  years  from  1792  to  1807,  the  un- 
selfish sentiment  stirred  up  throughout  England  on  behalf  of  an  ignorant 
and  powerless  class  of  people  was  decidedly  ennobling  to  her  thought. 
The  generous  and  self-denying  efforts  of  the  slave  trade  opponents 
in  Parliament  breathed  a  new  sense  of  lofty  purpose  and  of  stewardship 
into  the  spirit  of  the  legislators — a  feeling  of  responsibility  for  those 
under  their  control.  The  years  of  agitation  brought  attention  to  the 
rights  of  men  as  individuals.  It  revealed  to  the  closed  minds  and  cal- 
loused hearts  of  men  what  awful  sufferings  they  had  been  allowing  to 
go  on  in  fellow  creatures  without  even  troubling  themselves  to  learn 
of  the  situation.  It  started  a  habit  of  thought  among  men  in  channels 
other  than  those  of  personal  wants  and  achievement. 

Utter  failure  was  at  hand  to  that  scheme  which  had  prophesied 
that  all  would  be  well  if  only  there  was  faith  in  the  justice  of  God,  and 
men  were  left  to  work  out  each  his  own  salvation.    For  it  was  proven 


58 

that  the  greed  of  men  in  power  was  able  to  enslave  others  by  keeping 
them  in  ignorance  and  poverty,  and  so  to  hold  them  that  their  very 
souls,  in  bodies  oppressed  by  toil  and  hunger,  could  not  reach  out  to 
God.  Before  the  standard  of  life  of  a  people  can  be  raised  and  their 
ideals  elevated,  the  desire  for  better  things  must  be  inculcated  within 
them.  The  child  of  the  slums  often  cannot  appreciate  the  beauty 
of  the  daisy  nor  the  joy  of  running  through  the  fields  and  woods.  So 
also  the  slave,  born  in  servitude,  never  truly  understanding  what  freedom 
meant,  often  did  not  know  enough  to  rebel  even  in  his  heart.  From 
his  infancy,  he  had  been  taught  that  he  had  no  rights  and  that  he  was 
but  the  tool  of  another's  will.  A  free  man  could  say,  ''You  have  done 
me  wrong";  a  slave  could  not.  In  the  case  of  the  slave,  therefore, 
another  instance  appeared  where  the  individual  ethic  was  not  sufficient. 
His  time  was  not  his  own,  his  action  was  dictated  by  another,  even  his 
beliefs  and  knowledge  of  truth  were  circumscribed  by  the  lack  of  educa- 
tion to  which  external  control  held  him.  The  slave  was  in  no  position 
to  serve  either  himself  or  another — it  is  hard  to  conceive  how  the  moral 
consciousness  of  a  slave  could  ever  have  recognized  the  existence  of 
social  obligation.  If  these  souls  were  to  be  saved,  surely  the  respon- 
sibility lay  not  upon  themselves  but  upon  society.  The  time  was 
ripe  and  a  Wilberforce  awoke  to  the  call  of  the  social  ideal  in  this  phase. 
The  effects  of  the  institution  of  slavery  had  not  been  evil  upon 
those  only  who  were  held  in  bondage.  Slavery,  so  long  as  unopposed, 
was  a  hardener  of  hearts,  a  deadener  of  the  finer  sensibiUties,  a  stifler 
of  Christian  love.  Those  actively  engaged  in  the  trade,  particularly 
in  the  shipping  end,  became  coarse  and  brutalized  in  character.  Be- 
neath them  were  humans  whose  very  chastity  was  under  their  beck  and 
call.  Sin  brought  with  it  no  punishment,  brutality,  no  hatred,  degrada- 
tion, no  revenge.  Such  a  system  made  for  a  fearful  looseness  of  morale 
among  the  masters.     Slavery  was  twice  accursed. 

The  fight  against  evil  is  in  itself  usually  a  blessing.  By  the  appear- 
ance of  leaders,  morally  inspired  with  conviction  of  deep  wrong,  con- 
secration to  the  cause  of  others  was  stimulated;  a  great  outpouring  of 
sympathy  followed.  The  act  aboUshing  the  slave  trade  was  passed 
by  Parliament  in  1807.  This  act  of  1807,  may  be  said  to  be  the  first 
sweeping  legislative  enactment  in  England  which  was  prompted  for 
the  good  of  an  oppressed  class  upon  purely  moral  grounds  and  in  the 
face  of  apparent  economic  ruin  to  the  nation.  It  is,  therefore,  the 
first  great  example  of  the  new  social  legislation,  the  first  step  in  the 
building  up  of  that  technique  in  the  methods  of  securing  reform  through 


59 

legal  enactment  affecting  the  entire  nation.  Individual  effort  in  cor- 
recting abuses  appeared  puny  and  powerless  compared  with  this  new 
course  of  national  interference,  by  which  all  citizens  could  be  forced 
into  line — the  unwilling,  as  well  as  the  willing.  The  work  of  the  social 
idealist  became  henceforth  not  so  much  to  correct  abuses  by  means  of 
the  little  time  and  resources  at  his  own  command,  but  rather  to  per- 
suade legislators  and  to  educate  the  public  in  knowledge  of  existing 
evils  and  of  possible  remedies  and  irradicators.  It  was  seen  that  co- 
operation could  accomplish  in  a  day  what  scattered  and  spasmodic 
effort  could  not  attain  in  years. 

Finally  in  1833,  by  enactment,  all  slavery  was  aboUshed  throughout 
the  British  colonies,  by  the  payment  of  £20,000,000  to  the  owners 
for  the  emancipation  of  800,000  slaves.  England  was  a  changed  nation 
after  the  abolition.  Even  those  who  had  been  supporters  of  the  old 
institution  could  not  but  feel  the  sting  of  an  organized  pubUc  opinion, 
which  declared  itself  against  injustice  toward  any  human  soul.  En- 
thusiasm ran  high  in  seeking  to  provide  some  care  for  those  thrown 
upon  their  own  resources.  The  measures  taken,  particularly  in  Jamaica, 
were  woefully  deficient,  but  the  good  intentions  had  been  provoked  at 
any  rate.  Free  sugar  circles  were  formed,  contributions  for  the  slaves 
were  collected  and  considerable  efforts  were  made  to  reach  them  with 
schools  and  literature.^ 

Slavery  had  been  defended  in  massive  volumes  both  in  Europe 
and  America  by  an  appeal  to  supernatural  revelation.  Long  disserta- 
tions had  been  compiled  by  some  of  the  most  august  prelates  of  the 
churches  proving  that  slavery  existed  in  patriarchal  times  under  divine 
sanction.  Even  the  words  of  Christ  had  been  invoked  to  show  he  did 
not  advocate  setting  the  bond-man  free.  Hence,  the  total  abolition  of 
slavery  indicated  a  triumph  of  the  moral  consciousness  of  man,  either 
declaring  itself  superior  to  the  supernatural  claims  or  demanding  its 
right  to  interpret  revelation  according  to  its  own  highest  light. 

In  America,  anti-slavery  feeling  seems  to  have  been  more  slowly 
aroused  than  in  England,  perhaps  because  it  seemed  such  an  integral 
part  of  the  great  cotton-growing  industry.  The  whole  system  of  life 
in  the  South  had  grown  up  on  the  assumption  that  this  institution  was 
a  fixed  certainty.  The  big  plantation  became  surrounded  with  romance 
and  glamor.  It  became  associated  in  thought  with  the  picture  of  spa- 
cious halls,  munificent  hospitality,  abundant  crops,  handsome  horses, 
and  fair  women.    The  happy  singing  and  dancing  of  the  "darkies" 

1  See  Hall,  T.  C:  Social  Movements,  p.  117. 


60 

was  proverbial.  Prior  to  1830,  even  many  of  the  leaders  of  the  churches 
denounced  the  abolitionists  as  infidels  and  their  conduct  as  fanatical 
and  wicked.  But  anti-slavery  sentiment  had  been  by  no  means  non- 
existent. The  Federal  Constitution  in  1787  had  a  provision  that 
importation  of  slaves  should  not  be  prohibited  by  Congress  before  1808. 
From  that  year  on,  the  slave  trade,  as  distinct  from  slavery,  was  under 
prohibition  of  the  law,  but  was  carried  on  secretly  till  the  Civil  War. 
As  in  England,  the  labors  of  the  abolitionists  were  productive  of  a  large 
impulse  toward  broader  human  sympathies.  The  very  agitation  on 
behalf  of  a  people,  dirty,  ignorant,  even  low  in  morality,  meant  the 
creation  of  a  new  sort  of  public  conscience.  The  Revolution  had  been 
a  social  movement  in  the  sense  that  it  sought  the  good  of  the  whole 
and  in  that  it  involved  thorough  social  union.  But,  there,  each  citizen 
saw  that  in  fighting  for  his  country,  he  was  fighting  for  himself  also. 
However,  in  the  revolt  of  conscience  in  the  North  against  slavery,  we 
have  no  such  personal  motives  entering.  It  signals  the  entrance  of  a 
great  public  interest  and  zeal  in  the  cause  of  a  portion  of  society  who 
could  not  speak  for  themselves.  It  is  the  herald  of  a  social  sympathy 
ready  to  respond  to  any  call  of  wrong  to  be  righted,  or  of  better  con- 
ditions of  life  to  be  instituted.  It  marks  the  significant  introduction 
of  a  common  spirit  among  the  people  to  stand  for  moral  principles, 
irrespective  of  whether  it  was  "none  of  one's  business"  or  not. 

In  the  organization  of  extensive  propaganda  on  behalf  of  Christian 
missions,  we  have  a  manifestation,  in  some  respects,  of  the  same  social 
sympathy  evident  in  the  revolt  against  slavery.  To  be  sure,  the  mis- 
sionary impulse  was  confined  to  the  members  of  the  Christian  church 
and  its  original  purposes  were  not  so  much  to  express  love  for  the  heathen 
as  to  do  duty  by  him  as  the  possessor  of  a  soul  capable  of  entering  into 
another  world.  In  another  aspect,  however,  the  aim  of  the  missionary 
was  even  broader  than  that  of  the  aboUtionist — ^for  he  felt  responsibiUty 
toward  men  in  distant  lands  and  not  simply,  as  in  American  slavery, 
toward  his  own  fellow-inhabitants.  And  as  a  matter  of  fact,  those  who 
went  into  the  foreign  work  were  seldom  hard-hearted  beings,  who  shut 
their  eyes  toward  the  earthly  condition  of  men  and  sought  only  to  preach 
conviction  to  their  souls.  They  were  largely  men  of  deep  sympathies 
to  whom  any  request  for  love  or  food  or  shelter  could  not  fail  to  appeal. 
Here  lies  the  kernel  of  the  contribution  of  the  missionary  movement 
to  the  revolt  against  Puritanism — it  softened  and  opened  the  hearts 
of  men  toward  their  fellows. 


61 

The  call  to  missionary  effort  did  not,  of  course,  meet  with  anything 
like  unanimous  response  within  the  church  itself.  William  Carey  went 
out  as  the  first  Christian  messenger  to  India  in  1793,  but  it  was  only 
three  years  previous  when,  on  proposing  missions  in  a  Baptist  conference, 
he  had  been  commanded  to  be  silent  and  not  to  "meddle  with  Pro- 
vidence." Opposition  among  conservative  prelates  to  the  foreign  work 
was  long  and  bitter  and  has  by  no  means  been  fully  removed.  Outside 
of  the  church,  unselfish  giving  toward  the  uplifting  of  neglected  classes 
had  been  almost  nil  up  to  very  recent  times — the  dynamic  of  a  sufficiently 
cosmopolitan  social  sympathy  has  not  existed  in  any  large  measure 
sundered  from  religious  feeling. 

About  the  earliest  Protestant  missionary  work,  of  which  we  have 
record,  was  at  stations  estabhshed  for  the  Indians  in  Virginia  in  1710 
and  for  the  Mohawks  at  Albany  in  1727.  Roman  Catholic  missions 
had,  of  course,  existed,  especially  among  the  Iroquois  throughout  the 
entire  seventeenth  century.  Their  policy,  however,  remained  to  give 
no  education  to  the  natives  or  only  so  much  as  could  not  hinder  their 
complete  subjection  to  the  religious  order.  The  Catholic  missions 
must,  therefore,  be  neglected  in  this  brief  survey  of  the  molding  of 
public  opinion  in  England  and  America.  The  work  among  the  Indians 
did  not  flourish  before  the  Revolution,  probably  because  of  the  lack  of 
fimds  to  support  permanent  workers.  But  the  chief  hindrances  to 
development  of  missions  on  behalf  of  the  Indians  were  the  diversity 
and  difficulty  of  their  dialects  and  their  general  lack  of  education  and, 
therefore,  of  capacity  for  understanding  the  Christian  message.  It  is 
an  interesting  fact,  emphasized  by  James  in  his  English  Institutions 
and  the  American  Indian,  that  several  educational  institutions  now 
considered  of  the  highest  rank  were  founded  in  whole  or  in  part  to  Chris- 
tianize the  Indian.  In  1691,  the  College  of  William  and  Mary  was 
founded  with  the  aid  of  a  benefaction  of  Robert  Boyle,  and  there  Indian 
youth  were  boarded  and  received  their  education  for  many  years.  The 
original  charter  of  Harvard  University  provided  for  all  things  ''that 
may  conduce  to  the  education  of  the  English  and  Indian  youth  of  this 
country  in  knowledge  and  Godliness."  The  royal  charter  granted  to 
Dartmouth  College  in  1769  contained  the  provision 
"that  there  be  a  college  erected  for  the  education  of  Youth  of  the  Indian 
Tribes  in  this  Land  in  reading,  writing  and  all  parts  of  Learning  which 
shall  appear  necessary  and  expedient  for  civilizing  and  Christianizing 
children  of  Pagans. " 

As  early  as  1723,  Bishop  Berkeley  began  his  project  to  reform  the 
manners  of  the  EngUsh  in  the  plantations  in  the  West  Indies  and  to 


62 

propagate  the  gospel  among  the  American  savages.  He  pleaded  especially 
for  the  education  of  a  native  ministry  who  might  become  imbued  with 
public-spirited  principles  so  as  to  spread  "rehgion,  morals,  and  civil 
life  among  their  countrymen,  who  can  entertain  no  suspicion  of  men 
of  their  own  blood."  He  forcefully  denounced  to  the  British  nation 
the  lamentable  fact  of  the  "small  care  that  had  been  taken  to  convert 
the  negroes  of  our  plantations,  who,  to  the  infamy  of  England  and  scandal 
of  the  world,  continue  heathen  under  Christian  masters  and  in  Christian 
countries. "  The  influence  of  Berkeley  was  large,  because  of  the  general 
respect  in  which  his  philosophical  acumen  was  held,  and  his  following 
was  so  great  that  the  government  officials  did  not  dare  oppose  him 
until  they  had  safely  relegated  him  to  Rhode  Island.  In  1743,  Cod- 
rington  College  was  founded  in  Barbadoes  to  instruct  physicians  so  as 
to  do  "good  to  men's  souls  while  caring  for  their  bodies.^'  The  purpose 
and  value  of  medical  missions  were,  therefore,  thus  early  in  the  century 
recognized. 

The  active  participation  of  the  Methodists  in  the  missionary  enter- 
prise has  already  been  noted.  The  awakening  of  the  sympathies  of 
that  church  for  those  in  ignorance  of  the  Gospel  was  unquestioned. 
But  the  beginning  of  extensive  organization  for  the  sake  of  promoting 
missionary  activity  was  not  until  1792  when  the  Baptist  Missionary 
Society  was  planned  by  the  devoted  Carey  who  went  to  India.  Then 
followed  rapidly  the  London  Missionary  Society,  where  Churchmen 
and  Dissenters  united  in  1795;  the  Scottish  Church  Society,  1796;  the 
Church  Missionary  Society,  1799;  and  the  Wesleyan  Missionary  Society, 
1813.  Besides,  in  1799,  the  Religious  Tract  Society  and  in  1804,  the 
British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society  were  founded.  Throughout  the 
nineteenth  century,  the  missionary  spirit  has  made  regular  and  tre- 
mendous progress.  At  present  there  is  an  army  of  25,000  men  and 
women  in  the  service  of  the  Christian  Church  in  foreign  lands,  supported 
from  the  United  States  alone.  The  total  foreign  missionary  contribu- 
tions of  American  Protestant  churches  for  1913  were  $16,000,000,  which 
is  just  twice  the  total  amount  given  only  eight  years  ago.  This  money 
has  been  contributed  under  the  impulse  of  our  modern  social  ideals, 
which  place  service  and  not  self-perfection  at  the  head  of  the  list  of 
virtues.  The  Puritan  Church  gave  nothing  for  such  purposes — it  was 
too  much  concerned  with  the  frightful  burden  of  sin  under  which  its 
own  members  labored  and  too  willing  to  leave  all  in  the  hands  of  a  super- 
intending Deity. 


63 

The  missionary  enterprise  has  been  not  only  an  expression  of  social 
ideals,  but  also  a  creator  of  them.  Originally  the  motive  which  im- 
pelled men  to  go  out  to  the  heathen  and  others  to  support  them  was 
to  rescue  souls,  otherwise  doomed  in  their  ignorance  to  eternal  damnation. 
Even  this  was  one  step  away  from  an  individual  other-worldliness. 
This  was,  to  say  the  least,  a  social  other-worldliness.  It  did  reveal 
an  interest  in  other  souls  besides  one's  own,  and  it  did  interfere  in  some 
sense  with  the  course  of  ''predestination."  Under  the  ethics  of  strict 
Calvinism,  a  man  was  justified  in  attending  to  himself  and  leaving 
the  rest  to  God.  But  in  the  new  missionary  church,  the  Methodist 
or  Baptist  was  no  longer  seeking  each  the  salvation  of  his  own  soul; 
his  heart  was  reaching  out  toward  fellow-men  less  fortunate. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  missions  from  the  very  start  have  persistently 
refused  to  remain  other-worldly.  The  missionaries  could  not  but  see 
how  plainly  those  whom  they  went  out  to  serve  had  been  molded  by 
their  environment  and  by  the  degree  and  sort  of  their  education.  Those 
on  the  field  saw  they  could  not  leave  men  in  the  depths  of  poverty, 
ignorance,  and  disease,  and  expect  them  to  listen  while  told  of  a  God 
of  mercy  and  love.  We  learn  from  the  journal  of  Carey — the  very 
first  to  go  to  India — that  he  devoted  much  of  his  time  to  "the  study, 
the  printing  office,  and  the  school."  The  mission  worker  found  he 
could  only  preach  a  God  of  love,  if  he  were  living  a  life  of  love.  He  set 
to  work,  therefore,  to  alter  vicious  environment,  to  introduce  improved 
sanitation,  to  bring  pressure  to  bear  on  governments,  to  prohibit  cruel 
exploitation  of  labor,  to  estabUsh  schools  in  order  that  the  converts 
might  take  their  places  as  useful  members  of  their  communities.  The 
spiritual  was  found  to  be  reached  with  surprising  success  through  the 
material.  Year  by  year,  hospitals  and  schools  multiplied  on  the  field, 
until  no  mission  station  was  considered  complete  which  did  not  possess 
both.  And,  in  some  countries,  until  the  governments  awoke  to  their 
responsibilities,  the  only  higher  education  offered  was  in  the  schools 
founded  by  rehgious  societies.  Placing  spiritual  values  first,  the  mis- 
sionary propaganda  proceeded  to  build  up  strong  men  intellectually, 
physically  and  morally.  The  messenger  went  out  prompted  by  a  social 
call,  though  this  was  viewed  only  in  terms  of  religion.  His  vision  grew 
until  he  sought  to  redeem  the  whole  man;  he  became  filled  with  eager 
desire  to  give  of  all  the  best  the  West  had  learned  to  the  East  that  knew 
it  not. 


CHAPTER  IX 
The  Evangelical  Movement  and  Parlla.mentary  Soclal  Reform 

In  the  religious  decline  of  the  reigns  of  George  I  and  II  the  old  Puritan 
emphasis  upon  doctrinal  belief  had  fallen  into  disuse.  With  it,  the  ster- 
ner virtues  of  the  older  days  had  been  in  a  measure  discarded  also. 
Partly  to  counteract  this  influence,  and  partly  because  of  the  lack  of 
any  deep  spirituahty  in  the  wealthy  ecclesiastics  themselves,  the  ser- 
mons had  come  quite  largely  to  be  moral  exhortations.  Herein  a 
valuable  step  had  been  taken  in  the  progress  of  ethical  thought  which 
we  are  following  in  so  far  as  the  moral  end  came  to  be  presented  as 
virtuous  activity  and  not  as  mere  passive  intellectual  belief.  However, 
the  religious  decline  had  been  but  part  of  a  general  decline  in  earnest- 
ness of  aim  and  seriousness  of  outlook  upon  life.  Moral  teachings  by  a 
class  of  divines  whose  Uves  were  plainly  engrossed  in  self-gratification 
did  not  stir  the  Ufe  of  England  to  large  attempts  for  social  righteousness 
and  civic  purity. 

In  reaction  to  this  era  of  indifference,  the  later  eighteenth  century 
manifested  a  great  religious  revival.  "The  success  of  this  religious 
'reaction,'  as  it  is  called,  was  aided,  though  not  caused,  by  the  common 
belief  that  the  French  Revolution  had  been  mainly  due  to  infidelity;  the 
Revolution  was  taken  for  an  object  lesson  showing  the  value  of  religion 
for  keeping  the  people  in  order.  .  .  .  But  this  means  not  that  free 
thought  was  less  prevalent,  but  that  the  beliefs  of  the  majority  were 
more  aggressive  and  had  powerful  spokesmen,  while  the  eighteenth- 
century  form  of  rationalism  fell  out  of  fashion.  "^  The  religious  majority 
were,  however,  divided  into  two  schools.  The  earliest  extensive  mani- 
festation of  religious  fervor  which  appeared  was  that  led  by  John  Wesley. 
Radical  innovations  in  the  form  of  class-meetings,  lay  preaching  and  the 
like,  gradually  forced  this  movement  out  of  the  EstabUshed  Church  into 
the  Non-Conformist  group. 

Almost  simultaneously  with  the  Methodistic  movement,  but  flower- 
ing out  into  wide  popularity  and  influence  considerably  later,  a  great 
spiritual  awakening  appeared  within  the  Anglican  fold  itself.  There 
resulted  a  conservative  division  within  the  Established  Church  which 
became  known  as  Evangelical,  and  still  exists  under  that  name.  The 
time  when  this  movement  possessed  its  widest  significance  for  our  study 

1  Bury,  J.  B.:  Hist.  Freedom  of  Thought,  p.  202. 


65 

was  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century.  In  the  period  of  its 
inception,  the  wealth,  rank  and  intellect  of  the  country  had  been  as 
hostile  to  the  Evangelical  group  as  to  the  schism  headed  by  Wesley  and 
Whitefield.  But  a  new  era  of  success  and  enthusiasm  began  with  the 
accession  of  Wilberforce,  who  lent  to  the  cause  his  brilliant  parliamentary 
and  social  prestige  and  the  noble  reputation  which  he  had  gained  in  his 
successful  attack  upon  the  slave  trade.  His  Practical  View  of  Christi- 
anity, published  in  1797,  stands  for  the  entrance  of  Evangelicalism  as  a 
great  religious  and  social  force  in  the  midst  of  the  public  life  of  England. 
In  this  work,  his  plea  for  deeper  religious  conviction  was  presented  in 
ringing  terms.  He  decried  the  facts  that  religious  teachers  no  longer 
asked  what  a  man  believed,  but  only  what  he  did,  that  guilt  was  measured 
not  by  offensiveness  to  God,  but  by  injuriousness  to  society.  Here  we 
have  the  exact  converse  of  the  position  of  the  sleeping  divines  in  their 
beneficed  stations — they  had  been  preaching  morality,  while  themselves 
living  for  selfish  gratification;  Wilberforce  plead  for  deeper  religious  con- 
viction, while  himself  making  his  life  an  expression  of  ceaseless  service. 

Methodism  had  failed  to  reach  the  upper  classes  in  whose  hands  from 
long  years  had  been  the  wealth,  the  education,  and  the  governmental 
power  of  England.  These  were  becoming  steadily  more  presumptuous 
in  their  aristocratic  pretensions  and  less  sympathetic  toward  the  masses 
of  the  people.  The  appearance  of  the  Evangelical  spirit  within  the 
EstabUshed  Church  is  probably  what  averted  a  great  social  split.  After 
1760,  the  influence  of  the  Court  was  thrown  in  favor  of  the  Low  Church 
party,  and  George  III  took  pleasure  in  proving  himself  a  patron  of 
rehgion.  The  first  twenty  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  showed 
EvangelicaUsm  dominating  the  EngUsh  Church  and  making  rapid 
progress  throughout  English  society.  It  was  well  for  the  social  welfare 
of  England,  that  the  EvangeUcal  movement  raised  up  an  influential 
laity  who,  filled  with  religious  zeal,  sought  to  understand  the  life  about 
them. 

"The  permanent  heritage  received  from  Evangelicalism  is  not  theo- 
logical nor  intellectual,  it  is  social  and  philanthropic.  It  is  not  the 
thinkers  of  the  party  that  have  given  it  character,  but  the  workers  like 
Howard,  Wilberforce,  and  Lord  Shaftesbury.  "^ 

The  Non-Conformists  and  Methodists  had  never  enjoyed  any  sort  of 
influential  representation  in  Parliament.  Fortunate  indeed  was  it,  there- 
fore, that  the  Evangelical  party  appeared,  ready  to  give  voice  to  the 
appeals  of  the  people,  instead  of  allowing  the  aristocracy,  by  a  foolish 

2  Hall,  T.  C. :  Social  and  Relig.  Movements,  p.  254. 


66 

and  bitter  antagonism,  to  engender  hatred  and  revolt.  The  Seventh 
Earl  of  Shaftesbury  took  his  place  as  the  exponent  of  the  newly  aroused 
social  feeling  and  sought  to  secure  for  it  proper  legislative  expression. 
The  period  from  1800  to  1832  has  become  notable  as  the  era  of  reform 
bills  which  wrought  social  changes  of  the  most  sweeping  sort.  The 
work  of  John  Howard  bore  fruit  in  measures  for  better  prison  conditions. 
The  bloody  penal  codes  were  attacked  by  Minchin,  an  Evangelical  in 
Parliament.  In  1791,  Gray,  another  of  the  same  party,  had  a  committee 
appointed  to  investigate  the  justice  of  the  system  of  imprisonment  for 
debt,  and  their  findings  reported  10,000  incarcerated  on  that  charge  and 
twice  that  number  in  hiding  to  escape  such  a  life  without  hope.  The 
mere  revelation  of  such  conditions  as  existing  was  a  long  step  toward 
their  remedy.  EngUsh  society  was  shocked  to  know  how  blind  it  had 
been  to  the  nature  of  its  own  structure.  The  habit  of  subjecting  social 
conditions  to  a  careful  scientific  investigation  was  set  under  way. 

The  work  of  relief  in  the  hardships  of  factory  workers  progressed 
slowly  when  even  such  a  sincere  Christian  and  essential  democrat  at 
heart  as  John  Bright  could  not  see  their  rights  and  their  distress.  Not 
until  1844  could  an  act  be  passed  limiting  the  work  of  children  to  six 
and  a  half  hours  a  day,  and  making  their  attendance  at  school  compul- 
sory. And  finally,  in  1847,  the  ten  hours  bill  was  passed,  when  at 
length  the  human  needs  of  the  adult  came  to  recognition.  Hannah 
More  (1745-1833)  estabhshed  schools  for  the  education  of  poor  children, 
a  provision  unknown  when  it  had  been  the  fashion  to  expect  the  children 
of  the  poor  to  stay  in  the  position  of  their  fathers.  So  also.  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury founded  the  Ragged  School  Union  with  the  express  purpose  of 
teaching  the  boys  of  the  streets.  In  fact  Lord  Ashley,  the  Seventh 
Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  was  the  first  true  apostle  of  Social  Christianity  in 
England.  His  personality,  talents,  and  prestige  were  such  as  to  allow 
expression  to  his  earnest  religious  feeling  in  a  work  of  tremendous  accom- 
plishment for  improvement  in  the  living  conditions  of  the  lower  classes. 
He  was  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association, 
and  an  active  promoter  of  foreign  missions. 

"He  was  the  rally ing-point  for  a  great  circle  of  earnest  men  and  women 
who  felt  a  new  seriousness  in  life  and  who  recognized  almost  for  the  first 
time  that  the  best  proof  of  salvation  in  any  other  world  is  a  vigorous 
effort  to  redeem  the  homes  and  activities  of  men  and  women  in  this 
world."3 

Yet  Shaftesbury  was  truly  one  man  among  a  thousand,  and  the  social 
ideals  for  which  he  stood  can  by  no  means  be  thought  to  have  prevailed 

'  Smith,  S.  G.:  Democracy  and  the  Church,  p.  301. 


67 

in  England  in  general,  not  even  in  the  group  of  his  fellow  church  mem- 
bers.    In  his  journal  under  date  of  July  4,  1840,  he  writes: 

*'I  find  that  Evangehcal  religionists  are  not  those  on  whom  I  can  rely. 
The  factory  question  and  every  question  for  what  is  called  'humanity' 
receive  as  much  support  from  the  'men  of  the  world'  as  from  the  men 
who  say  they  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  it." 

In  fact,  the  social  zeal  of  Shaftesbury  and  his  fellow  reformers  aroused 
a  large  sympathetic  following  among  many  who  had  never  been  touched 
by  any  religious  motives  whatever,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  much  of 
the  conservative  element  of  the  church  stood  laggard. 

The  Reform  Bill  of  1832  introduced  into  Enghsh  parliamentary 
life  a  very  considerable  part  of  the  great  middle  classes.  The  House  of 
Commons  had  been  falling  more  and  more  out  of  touch  with  the  nation 
at  large,  and  England's  more  sturdy  and  progressive  elements  felt  them- 
selves represented  with  hopeless  inadequacy  by  that  body.  The  bill 
was  twice  passed  by  the  House  of  Commons,  only  to  be  defeated  by 
the  Lords,  who  were  at  length  forced  to  yield  to  the  overwhelming  pres- 
sure from  crown  and  public.  Spencer  Walpole  pronounced  the  act 
'the  largest  revolution  which  had  ever  been  peaceably  effected  in  any 
country;'*  and,  regarded  as  the  forerunner  of  other  more  far-reaching 
extensions  of  the  suffrage,  it  may  well  be  so  considered.  All  of  the  most 
glaringly  unjust  distributions  of  electoral  representation  were  remedied. 
No  longer  were  two  representatives  to  be  allowed  to  Boseney  in  Corn- 
wall, a  hamlet  of  three  cottages,  while  Birmingham  and  Manchester, 
great  industrial  cities  of  more  than  100,000  inhabitants  each,  had  no 
representation.  The  new  statute  did  not  introduce — and  was  not  in- 
tended to  introduce — democracy.  But  it  did  put  a  new  hope  into  the 
masses.  Evidently  properly  qualifications  were  not  so  sacred  as  for- 
merly thought  and  could  be  lowered  when  the  demand  was  sufficiently 
strong.  A  path  had  been  broken  into  the  sacrosanct  enclosure  of  priv- 
ilege— the  breach  might  still  be  widened  by  the  use  of  the  same  weapons, 
provided  only  the  charge  of  gunpowder  be  made  heavier.  The  admis- 
sion of  a  large  additional  number  of  voters  of  the  middle  class  was  a 
distinct  impetus  to  the  progress  of  social  ideals.  A  larger  group  of 
people — and  the  additions  were  largely  from  the  trading  and  more  humble 
classes — stood  ready  to  demand  that  their  rights  be  considered  in  the 
making  of  laws.  The  new  voters  were  also  more  closely  in  touch  with 
the  industrial  and  agricultural  laboring  classes  than  the  aristocracy  had 
ever  been.    The  custom  of  looking  to  the  good  of  all  could  never  take 

*  Walpole:  Electorate  and  Legislature,  p.  62. 


68 

complete  root  until  all  were  recognized  as  integral  parts  of  the  social 
structure.  Every  step,  therefore,  in  the  extension  of  the  suffrage  tended 
to  bring  to  public  notice  that  privilege  was  gradually  breaking  down 
and  that  the  ultimate  goal  of  legislation  and  even  of  the  individual's 
conduct  would  be  not  the  good  of  any  one  class,  but  of  all  classes. 

The  Reform  Bill  and  the  introduction  thereby  into  active  citizenship 
of  the  great  middle  classes  could  scarcely  have  been  brought  about  at 
this  time  except  through  the  training  and  organization  of  the  Evangelical 
party  and  the  Methodist  and  Dissenting  chapels,  and  by  virtue  of  the 
spread  of  general  education  which  these  religious  movements  had  effected. 
A  Democracy  had  been  spread  by  the  religious  revival  which  was  an 
essential  preamble  to  the  securing  of  greater  liberality  of  legislation. 
"At  a  time  when  commercialism  and  growing  town  populations  threatened 
to  swamp  the  moral  life  of  England,  the  energy  and  sacrifice  of  the 
Evangelical  party  carried  the  commercial  classes  over  to  the  side  of 
righteousness.  .  .  .  The  outcome  in  missionary  and  philanthropic  en- 
terprises changed  the  character  of  even  the  mercantile  energy  of  Eng- 
land."^ EvangelicaHsm  had  done  a  great  work  in  filling  the  upperclasses 
with  a  broad-minded,  public-spirited,  religious  zeal,  and  in  equipping  the 
middle  classes  to  take  their  places  as  active  members  of  the  body  politic. 
But  the  work  was  scarcely  more  than  commenced — privilege  was  only 
partially  broken  down,  the  emancipation  of  the  lower  classes  had  only 
been  set  in  motion  by  the  enfranchisement  of  her  most  prosperous 
representatives.  A  large  share  of  the  population  of  England  was  still 
excluded  from  recognition  in  the  social  whole. 

Evangelicalism,  having  done  its  splendid  work  in  promoting  reform 
legislation,  fell  strangely  back  into  narrowness  and  sectarian  bigotry. 
In  its  last  phases,  sectarianism  with  motives  seeking  not  the  good  of  the 
world,  but  rather  merely  the  good  of  its  own  members,  blasted  the  spiritu- 
ality of  its  life.  It  became  short-sighted  even  in  its  benefactions  and 
began  to  scour  all  regions  for  proselytes.  Strange  to  say,  it  cultivated  an 
excessive  spirit  of  individualism,  craving  for  a  personal  assurance  of 
divine  favor.  It  was  in  ridicule  of  this  stage  of  its  development,  that 
the  denunciatory  caricatures  of  EvangelicaHsm  became  popular  in  English 
letters,  picturing  the  fruitless  effort  to  separate  religion  from  life.  The 
cultivation  of  happiness  and  friendship  here  was  sacrificed  to  a  strife 
to  get  sufficient  credits  necessary  to  the  degree  of  future  blessedness. 
Meanwhile,  the  critical  powers  of  the  working  classes  and  the  growing 

^  HaU,  T.  C:  Social  and  Relig.  Movements,  p.  256. 


69 

discovery  of  their  own  abilities  made  them  increasingly  impatient  of  the 
religiosity  into  which  Evangelicalism  was  deteriorating. 

On  the  whole,  the  accomplishments  of  the  reform  legislators  which 
we  have  been  following  had  resulted  in  almost  final  and  complete  victory 
in  defeat  of  the  old  Puritanical  ideas  of  predestined  evil  and  of  sufferings 
as  God's  punishment  upon  original  sin  and  present  wrong-doing.  The 
scientific  point  of  view  in  the  study  of  the  causes  of  misery  and  of  the 
proper  methods  for  its  removal  or  lessening  had  been  introduced  amid 
great  applause.  The  public  conscience  had  discovered  that  men's  mis- 
fortunes were  not  due  to  the  vengeance  of  God,  nor  more  than  in  part 
to  their  own  wrong-doing,  but  largely  because  of  man's  inhumanity  to 
man.  Concerted  action  and  the  education  of  the  public  in  regard  to 
abuses  and  their  correction  were  found  to  work  miracles  hitherto  scarcely 
hoped-for.  The  world  was  plainly  not  to  be  improved  by  fleeing  from  it 
or  by  leaving  it  in  the  hands  of  God,  unless  men  were  recognized  to  be 
his  only  instruments.  The  old  conception  of  original  sin  had  given  it  a 
certain  sanctity  against  attack,  and  permanence  under  the  divine  ordina- 
tion. The  new  conception,  however  much  it  recognized  the  stern  reaHty 
and  omnipresence  of  sin,  despised  and  hated  it,  feared  it  only  when 
unattacked,  and  considered  the  fight  against  it  to  be  the  source  of  trium- 
phant character  in  the  individual.  The  new  conception  regarded  the 
world  as  a  place  which  could  be  made  agreeable  and  in  which  the  actual 
evils  were  not  due  so  much  to  inerradicable  faults  in  human  nature,  as  to 
perverse  institutions  and  perverse  education.  Interest  had  been  trans- 
ferred from  the  dogmas  of  religion  to  the  improvement  of  society,  and  the 
world  inclined  to  the  beUef  that  man's  happiness  depended  not  so  much 
on  perusal  of  revelation  as  on  social  transformation. 


CHAPTER  X 

The   Broad   Church   Movement   and   Christian   Socialism 

The  Evangelical  party,  after  its  rise  to  power  in  connection  with  an 
active  participation  in  the  advancement  of  social  welfare,  had  sunk 
back  into  a  reliance  upon  the  old  sectarian  rituahsm.  It  was  treating  all 
questioning  as  wicked  doubt  and  was  driving  from  it  the  intelligence  of 
an  awakening  people.  Once  more,  this  time  exactly  in  the  midst  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  the  church  slumped  back  into  a  period  of  lethargy. 

Meanwhile,  science  was  constantly  advancing,  calmly  proceeding 
without  the  aid  of  revelation  to  ferret  out  the  wonderful  secrets  of  life 
and  of  the  structure  of  the  universe.  The  publication  of  Darwin's 
Origin  of  Species  in  1859  was  the  great  land-mark  which  drew  attention 
to  the  gulf  between  the  church  and  natural  science.  When  this  book 
appeared.  Bishop  Wilberforce,  whose  breadth  of  sympathy  had,  in  his 
later  years,  been  clouded  over  by  his  rigid  orthodoxy,  voiced  the  senti- 
ment of  the  great  body  of  theologians  in  England  and  on  the  Continent 
when  he  said,  "The  principle  of  natural  selection  is  incompatible  with 
the  word  of  God."  But  in  spite  of  this  ultimatum,  great  thinkers  immedi- 
ately took  up  the  idea  of  development  and  applied  it  not  only  to  the 
non-living  and  the  living  world  of  nature,  but  also  to  the  mind  of  man 
and  to  the  history  of  civiUzation,  including  thought  and  religion. 

The  great  body  of  the  church  stood  stohd  and  sought  to  deny  the 
truth  of  a  system  of  scientific  inquiry  which  found  no  need  for  divine 
intervention  in  the  universe.  Nevertheless,  this  situation  could  not  long 
continue.  Two  alternatives  were  open.  Either  the  Church  of  England 
might  have  taken  such  a  stand  as  did  the  Pope  in  1864,  by  issuing  a 
Syllabus  "embracing  the  principal  errors  of  the  age,"  in  which  the  propo- 
sitions were  denounced  that  every  man  is  free  to  adopt  the  religion  he 
considers  true  according  to  the  light  of  reason;  that  states  are  right  to 
allow  foreign  immigrants  to  exercise  their  own  reUgion  in  pubhc;  that 
metaphysics  can  and  ought  to  be  pursued  without  reference  to  divine  and 
ecclesiastical  authority;  and  that  the  Pope  ought  to  make  terms  with 
progress,  liberalism,  and  modern  civilization.  Or  another  course  was 
possible — to  accept  fearlessly  and  joyfully  all  the  thoroughly  substanti- 
ated results  of  science,  to  take  them  up  into  the  church's  own  body  of 
truth  and  to  thank  God  for  the  bounty  of  a  progressive  revelation. 
This  latter  course  was  that  taken  by  divines  distinguished  for  strong 


71 

personality  and  brilliant  intellect.  The  Broad  Church  movement  was 
begun.  Had  there  been  a  Pope  in  the  Established  Church  such  men 
as  Arnold,  Whately,  Maurice,  Dean  Stanley,  Coleridge,  and  Ruskin 
would  probably  all  have  been  cast  from  its  doors,  and  their  brilliant  ser- 
vices lost  forever  to  the  Christian  church.  Instead,  the  Broad  Church, 
as  it  developed  at  this  time,  united  all  these  varied  types  of  men. 

The  permanent  service  of  the  Broad  Church  party  was  its  creation  of 
a  spirit  of  reverent  freedom  and  of  Christian  confidence  in  God  and  man. 
The  protest  was  maintained  and  carried  that  Protestantism  does  not 
stand  on  the  basis  of  any  closed  metaphysical  philosophy.  The  Christian 
life  was  declared  to  be  a  life  of  love  and  service,  of  generosity  and  good- 
will, inspired  by  faith  in  Christ.  There  was  no  real  necessity  for  the 
profession  of  a  long  series  of  forty-nine  articles  before  work  in  com  ron 
could  be  undertaken  to  the  glory  of  God.  The  church  was  seen  to  be 
losing  its  hold  on  the  masses  because  it  adhered  to  old  prejudices  and 
sacerdotalism.  Dr.  Arnold  pr6posed  a  remedy — the  church  must  be 
made  truly  national  by  the  admission  of  dissenters  and  the  encourage- 
ment of  philosophical  thought.  'The  Church  should  be,''  as  Coleridge 
urged,  "an  essential  part  of  the  state  organism,  not  a  close  corporation, 
belonging  to  the  priestly  order.  ...  It  must  be  liberalized,  that  the 
State  might  be  made  religious,  and  drop  the  antiquated  claims  to  magical 
authority  which  opposed  it  to  the  common  sense  of  the  masses  and  the 
reason  of  the  thinkers."^    C  r,  to  ouote  Dr.  Thomas  Arnold's  own  words: 

"  If  the  clergy  would  come  forward  as  one  man  from  Cumberland  to 
Cornwall,  exhorting  peaceableness  on  the  one  side  and  justice  on  the  other, 
denouncing  the  high  rents  and  the  game  laws,  and  the  carelessness  which 
keeps  the  poor  ignorant  and  then  wonders  that  they  are  brutal,  I  verily 
believe  they  might  yet  save  themselves  and  the  State." 

A  platforrr,  other  than  intellectual  agreement  had  to  be  found  on 
which  Christian  men  could  be  bound  together  for  religious  life  and  social 
service.  This,  such  men  as  Arnold  and  Maurice  sought  to  find  in 
Christian  feeling,  love,  and  sympathy.  Many  of  the  church's  noblest 
sons  came  forward  with  the  assertion  that  the  fundamental  concept  of 
Christianity  was  social  love.  They  decried  the  manner  in  which  eccle- 
siastics had  conceived  rehgion  as  separate  from  secular  interests.  The 
chief  social  significance  of  the  Broad  Church  movement  is,  that  it  sought 
an  interpretation  ot  the  new  life  with  its  problems  and  dangers  from  a 
deeply  sympathetic  point  of  view.  Largely  through  the  influence  of 
this  vndely-diffused  spirit,  there  was  avoided  in  England  that  antagonism 

» Stephen,  L.:  Eng.  Utilitarians  III,  p.  481. 


72 

and  even  animosity  which  on  the  continent  of  Europe  had  been  growing 
up  between  the  ir'eals  of  Christianity  and  progressive  bought.  Great 
freedom  of  thought  was  the  prevalent  spirit  in  Europe — in  Italy  and 
Spain  the  Hberals  were  driven  out  of  the  church  into  infideUty.  It  was 
fortunate  that  in  England  a  reUgious  spirit  pervaded  Hberal  thought 
and  that  it  was  not  stifled  by  church  autocracy.  The  highest  genius 
was  saved  to  enrich  the  church  instead  of  being  driven  to  fight  against 
it  because  of  its  ignorance  and  narrowness. 

The  Broad  Church  movement  was  especially  characterized  by  its 
distinctively  democratic  aspect.  In  his  Kingdom  of  Christy  (1842),  F.  D. 
Maurice  pleaded  for  the  admission  of  all  Dissenters  to  the  Church, 
not  on  the  basis  of  a  set  of  opinions,  but  on  that  of  the  organizing  life  of 
Christ.  His  claim  was  that  the  element  of  truth  in  all  religions  is  not 
any  separable  doctrine  common  to  all,  but  can  be  found  only  by  regarding 
all  creeds  as  partial  and  distorted  expressions  of  the  full  truth  revealed 
in  Christ.  Accordingly,  the  poUcy  which  the  new  movement  proclaimed 
was  that  of  "comprehension,"  as  opposed  to  "toleration,"  in  which  there 
is  arrogant  assumption  of  superiority.  This  is  the  very  essence  of  the 
meaning  of  democracy.  Each  individual,  province  or  organization  has 
its  own  share  to  contribute  to  the  wisdom  and  wealth  of  the  whole. 
Society  is  weakened  by  the  exile  or  persecution  of  any  of  its  elements 
whose  purpose  is  to  stand  for  what  it  beUeves  to  be  good  citizenship. 
The  hberal  movement  in  the  church  was,  therefore,  instilling  appreciat  on 
of  all  the  many  Unes  of  thought  which  individuals  represent  and  of  the 
different  beliefs  which  the  many  classes  and  groups  of  society  stand  for. 
Herein  lay  an  essential  contribution  toward  social  ideals.  Mutual  ad- 
miration is  an  incentive  to  mutual  service.  If  all  the  parts  of  the  social 
whole  are  recognized  as  vital  and  valuable  to  the  health  and  progress 
of  the  organism,  then  the  head  will  seek  to  care  for  the  limbs.  The 
ruling  forces  will  do  everything  in  their  power  to  guide  and  protect 
their  servants,  who  are  at  the  same  time  necessary  coadjutors. 

The  Broad  Church  movement  was,  therefore,  a  process  of  education 
of  the  most  bigoted  and  conservative  elements  of  society — the  ecclesi- 
astical— which  taught  them  that  all  of  the  other  elements  were  of  value 
to  the  whole.  But  a  man  like  Maurice  went  even  further  and  felt  that 
to  the  very  Church  itself  the  discountenanced  dissenter  would  make 
valuable  contributions,  if  only  the  doors  of  that  exclusive  organization 
might  be  thrown  open  to  him.  Each  member  of  the  social  organism  is 
vital  to  the  other  parts.  Working  in  harmony,  each  inspires  and  invigor- 
ates the  other;  working  discordantly,   each  may  inhibit   the   highest 


73 

efficiency  of  the  other.  This  fact  fully  realized,  no  man  seeks  to  be 
sufficient  to  himself  alone.  When  the  individual  comes  to  the  conscious- 
ness that  all  the  rest  of  society  affects  his  interests,  then  he  will  seek  to  aid 
and  improve  those  agencies  by  every  means  that  lies  in  his  power.  If 
I  must  drink  of  the  water  of  the  lake  and  I  see  how  to  purify  it  or  keep 
it  from  further  contamination,  then  I  am  a  fool  if  I  do  not  lend  a  hand 
in  the  cause  of  sanitation.  So  the  Broad  Church  movement  taught  an 
appreciation  of  the  inherent  worth  of  all  persons  and  groups,  and  this 
was  a  great  step  in  the  lesson  of  social  ethics  that  the  existence  of  any 
"neglected  classes"  is  a  sin  and  harmful  to  the  best  interests  of  the 
whole. 

One  of  the  chief  literary  productions  of  the  movement  we  are  study- 
ing was  the  publication  in  1860  of  a  volume  of  Essays  and  Reviews  by 
seven  writers,  six  of  whom  were  clergymen.  The  views  expressed  in  these 
essays  do  not  seem  very  radical  today  and  would  be  accepted  for  the  most 
part  by  any  liberal  pastor,  but  they  won  for  their  authors  the  stigma  of 
the  ''Seven  against  Christ."  It  was  laid  down  that  the  Bible  is  to  be 
interpreted  like  any  other  book.  Two  of  the  clergymen  authors  were 
prosecuted,  and,  though  condemned  by  the  ecclesiastical  court,  were 
released  by  the  Lord  Chancellor  on  his  pronouncement  that  it  is  not 
essential  for  a  clergyman  to  believe  in  eternal  punishment.  This  decision 
won  for  the  Lord  Chancellor  this  famous  epitaph : 

''Towards  the  close  of  his  earthly  career,  he  dismissed  Hell  with 
costs  and  took  away  from  orthodox  members  of  the  Church  of  England 
their  last  hope  of  everlasting  damnation." 

The  decision  is  indicative  of  an  important  change  which  had  been 
wrought  in  public  belief.  The  leaders  both  of  the  Methodist  Revival 
and  of  the  Evangelical  movement  had  continued  to  hold  out  the  threat 
of  eternal  agony  over  the  sinners  who  did  not  acknowledge  the  saving 
grace  of  religious  faith.  But  the  era  of  the  Broad  Church  movement, 
marked,  as  it  was,  by  sympathy  with  other  faiths  and  with  all  men 
who  stood  on  the  side  of  righteousness,  whatever  their  name  or  creed, 
refused  to  consign  all  non-believers  to  such  a  horrible  end  as  Calvinism 
had  painted.  Reason  had  been  doing  its  work  both  inside  and  outside 
of  the  thurch,  and  the  conception  of  a  truly  Christian  love  seemed  incom- 
patible with  the  idea  of  a  God  more  cruel  and  relentless  than  the  most 
fiendish  of  human  tyrants. 

Just  this  fear  of  hell  and  belief  in  a  rigorous  God  had  been  perhaps 
the  strongest  single  support  of  a  negative  virtue — of  the  old  individual- 
istic ethics.    This  terrible  threat  held  over  poor,  weak,  ignorant  humans. 


74 

was  a  threat  of  punishment  for  sins  and  for  failure  to  beUeve.  It  was  not 
conceived  chiefly  as  a  threat  against  leaving  undone  works  of  sympathy 
and  love.  It  made  for  an  attempt  to  avoid  wrong-doing  by  refusing  to 
have  contact  with  evil.  It  inspired  a  ceaseless  effort  to  purify  the  self 
and  a  never-ending  watchfulness  in  keeping  the  lips  from  guile  and  the 
hands  from  iniquity.  No  person  could  be  perfectly  sure  that  his  faith 
was  adequate  or  that  his  life  was  sufficiently  free  from  guilt  to  escape 
God's  wrath.  Not  until  dread  of  this  atrocious  penalty  was  removed, 
could  one  properly  dare  to  presume  to  give  himself  unreservedly  to  others. 
A  John  Wesley  did  give  of  his  time  and  energy  unceasingly  to  altruistic 
service,  but  he  was  buoyed  up  by  his  theory  of  sanctification,  which 
assured  him  of  his  own  salvation.  Now,  for  all  men  who  had  been 
released  from  the  fear  of  hell,  terror  on  behalf  of  one's  own  fulfillment  of 
the  law  was  banished.  Men's  hearts  and  minds,  no  longer  warped  by 
the  old  selfish  fear,  were  left  open  to  social  thoughts  and  impulses.  He 
who  felt  that  he  had  talents  or  wealth  or  knowledge  superior  to  some  of 
his  fellows  might  go  out  freely  to  share  of  them.  No  longer  consumed 
by  anxiety  for  his  own  welfare,  man  could  look  around  for  other  worlds 
to  conquer.  These  he  found  in  the  needs  of  others.  He  saw  his  ch  allenge 
in  the  sin  and  ignorance  existent  throughout  society.  Not  only  did  he 
feel  the  need  of  some  outlet  for  his  energy,  but  a  positive  motive  force 
he  found  in  Christian  love.  It  is  to  the  glory  of  the  Broad  Church  move- 
ment that  upon  this  feature  of  the  existence  and  beauty  of  love  and 
sympathy  it  laid  the  greatest  emphasis  of  its  teachings. 

Methodism  had  languished  and  Evangelicalism  had  never  made 
a  really  serious  attempt  to  enroll  the  laboring  masses  in  its  churches. 
The  Broad  Church,  however,  in  one  of  its  phases,  did  attempt  an  earnest 
propaganda  to  come  sympathetically  into  touch  with  the  workingman. 
The  movement  called  Christian  Socialism  was  headed  by  four  Church  of 
England  divines— Maurice,  Kingsley,  Ludlow,  and  Thomas  Hughes. 
In  the  critical  period  of  1848,  these  four  men  bravely  stood  the  storm  of 
opprobrium  heaped  upon  them  by  aristocracy  and  clergy  and  gave  proof 
that  part  of  the  Christian  church  was  alive  to  the  great  social  problems 
of  the  day. 

Frederick  Denison  Maurice  (1805-1872)  felt  that  he  was  the  possessor 
of  a  new  vision  of  the  place  which  Christianity  should  hold  as  a  vital 
factor  in  all  life.  Especially  did  the  conviction  burn  within  him  that 
the  church  had  been  neglecting  its  duty  toward  the  workingman. '  Glad- 
stone comments  on  the  conditions  in  1830  thus: 

"Taking  together  the  expulsion  of  the  poor  and  laboring  classes  (especi- 
ally from  the  town  churches)  .  .  .  and  above  all  the  coldness  and 


75 

indifference  of  the  lounging  or  sleeping  congregations,  our  services  were 
probably  without  a  parallel  in  the  world  for  their  debasement.  "^ 

Moreover,  the  spread  of  general  education  was  bringing  to  the  workers 
some  interest  in  anti-Christian  radicalism.  Spurned  by  the  church, 
many  were  turning  their  backs  on  all  things  Christian  and  taking  up  an 
open  and  even  bitter  hostiUty  to  Ecclesiasticism  as  was  the  case  with  the 
Social  Democrats  of  Germany. 

Maurice,  by  a  study  of  the  needs  and  aspirations  of  the  laboring 
classes  and  by  a  staunch  support  of  their  rights  before  the  public,  sought 
in  every  way  to  establish  a  bond  of  sympathy  between  the  church  and  the 
more  intelHgent  workingman.  For  years  he  made  the  Workingmen's 
College,  Great  St.  Ormond  St.,  the  scene  of  his  most  earnest  labors. 
To  this  work  he  drew  the  interest  and  cooperation  of  some  of  the  noblest 
leaders  in  English  life — ^Tennyson,  Carlyle,  Kingsley  of  Brighton,  to 
mention  only  a  few.  Maurice  embodied  in  his  Kingdom  of  Christ  his 
faith  in  the  church  under  two  aspects — one  as  a  great  social  organization, 
the  other  as  a  great  educational  organization.  For  the  religious  philoso- 
phy of  Coleridge  and  for  the  practical  philanthropy  of  Owen,  Maurice  and 
Kingsley  now  became  eager  advocates  in  the  name  of  orthodox  Christi-: 
anity.  In  so  doing,  they  brought  disfavor  upon  themselves  that  negated 
any  chances  for  lucrative  bishoprics.  But  they  gained  a  more  splendid 
title  as  the  Friends  of  Man. 

Workingmen's  Colleges  were  estabUshed  at  Oxford,  Cambridge,  Man- 
chester, Sheffield,  Glasgow  and  many  other  places.  In  a  small  degree 
at  least,  the  revolt  against  a  hollow  ecclesiasticism  and  vaunting  privilege 
was  kept  from  turning  into  a  revolt  against  all  Christianity.  By  the 
meeting  of  the  rich  and  poor  in  these  colleges,  a  mutual  understanding 
was  engendered  which  averted  to  some  extent  the  evils  of  class-ignorance. 
Archdeacon  Hare  wrote  of  Maurice  in  1853: 

*'I  do  not  believe  that  there  is  any  other  living  man  who  has  done 
anything  at  all  approaching  to  what  Maurice  has  effected  in  reconciling 
the  reason  and  the  conscience  of  thoughtful  men  of  our  age  to  the  faith 
of  the  church."^ 

Charles  Kingsley  in  Alton  Locke  made  an  appeal  for  the  reform  of  the 
city,  full  of  turbulent  thinking  and  passionate  appeal,  but  coming  to  this 
conclusion — ''No  more  of  any  system  good  or  bad  but  more  of  the  spirit 
of  God  can  regenerate  the  world."  In  1851,  he  preached  in  London  on 
the  "Message  of  the  Church  to  the  Workingman."    In  consequence, 

^  Contemp.  Review,  Oct.  1874.    The  Church  of  Eng.  and  Ritualism. 
'  Hare:  Life  of  Maurice,  V.  II,  p.  184. 


76 

he  was  forbidden  by  the  Bishop  to  preach  in  London,  but,  undaunted, 
he  entered  on  an  active  program  of  reform.  He  regarded  the  ills  of  the 
people  as  social  sins  and  agitated  constantly  for  better  housing  of  the 
poor,  sanitary  reform  and  promotion  of  industrial  cooperation.  "Com- 
petition," said  Kingsley,  "means  Death:  cooperation  means  Life."  It 
was  not  so  much  in  direct  accompUshment  that  Kingsley  was  signifi- 
cant, as  in  the  fact  that  he  lent  his  Hterary  genius  to  the  social  cause 
and  preached  the  gospel  in  parables  of  life. 

The  results  of  the  Christian  Socialist  movement  were  really  con- 
siderable, but  not  far-reaching.  The  church  was  not  more  than  shghtly 
touched  by  the  enthusiasm  for  new  purposes.  It  did  not  respond  ade- 
quately to  the  needs  of  the  workingman,  and  the  alienation  of  the  lower 
classes  from  an  aristocratic  clericalism  went  steadily  on.  However,  the 
movement  had  done  a  great  deal  to  stir  up  a  feeUng  of  brotherhood 
between  classes  previously  wholly  estranged.  To  its  teaching  was  due 
the  founding  of  several  cooperative  societies  especially  among  the  fac- 
tory people  of  the  Midlands,  which  continue  successful  to  this  day. 
The  creed  of  Christian  Socialism  became  the  model  for  such  labor  organ- 
izations as  have  since  grown  up  in  a  spirit  of  harmony  with  Christian 
teaching  instead  of  hostihty  to  it. 


CHAPTER  XI 

Utilitarianism 

Our  study  thus  far  has  been  primarily  a  tracing  of  the  rise  of  mani- 
festations of  social  sympathy,  of  the  movements  in  industrial,  political 
and  religious  life  which  drew  men's  attention,  now  in  one  way,  now  in 
another,  to  the  needs  of  their  fellows.  We  come  finally  to  the  philoso- 
phy— to  a  system  of  ethics  more  fully  developed  in  terms  of  social  wel- 
fare than  was  Adam  Smith's.  The  "  Utilitarian"  philosophy  was  worked 
out  by  a  long  line  of  thinkers  in  order  to  substantiate  before  the  bar 
of  reason  the  purposes  which  were  beginning  to  grip  men's  hearts.  Self- 
preservation  had  long  been  known  as  the  first  law  of  nature.  If  any 
man  were,  therefore,  so  far  to  forget  "the  law  of  the  ape  and  the  tiger," 
so  to  silence  his  own  grasping  instinct  as  to  forego  any  selfish  gratification 
for  himself  in  order  that  another  might  not  be  in  destitution,  what  co  uld 
assure  him  he  was  not  a  fool?  If  there  were  nothing  but  a  moral  monitor 
on  guard  in  the  heart,  that  could  be  stilled  or  swallowed  up  by  pressing 
desire.  In  human  society,  before  any  course  of  action  or  principle  of 
government  has  been  accepted  as  a  desirable  innovation,  it  has  been 
held  up  to  searching  criticism  and  has  presented  a  satisfactory  logical 
defence. 

To  be  sure,  Jesus  had  summed  up  man's  duty  in  two  dictates:  (1) 
Love  the  Lord  thy  God;  and  (2)  Love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself.  But  the 
philosophical  systems  which  the  Church  Fathers,  which  Medieval  Scho- 
lasticism, and  which  even  the  theologians  of  the  Reformation  had  worked 
out,  were  largely  concerned  with  the  first  injunction.  More  than  that, 
the  God  to  be  loved  had  been  so  exalted  in  His  majesty  as  to  be  conceived 
as  rigorous  despot.  However,  philosophy  could  not  neglect  the  second 
injunction  forever.  The  moral  sense  writers  perceived  that  man  was 
not  wholly  depraved,  and  postulated  in  him  an  instinct  toward  benevo- 
lence. Finally,  in  Utilitarianism,  we  find  the  effort  to  sum  up  in  one 
formula  the  full  aim  and  purport  of  the  ethical  life  as  satisfactory  not 
only  to  the  moral  sense  but  to  the  keenest  analysis  of  the  human  reason. 

The  influence  of  the  new  philosophy  under  the  leadership  of  Bentham 
and  James  Mill,  but  more  especially  under  John  Stuart  Mill  (1806-73), 
was  exerted  over  a  large  group  of  persons,  whose  religious  sympathies 
had  not  been  touched  by  Methodism  or  Evangelicalism  and  to  whom 
formal  worship  and  a  subsidized  clergy  could  make  no  appeal.     In  fact, 


78 

no  educated  person  of  the  nineteenth  century  could  escape  some  touch 
with  the  new  social  ethics  as  EngHsh  literature  became  colored  through 
and  through  with  its  message.  Benn  says:  "Bentham's  standard  of 
happiness  was  the  watchword  of  the  century,  the  cry  of  the  pulpit,  no 
less  than  of  the  philosopher."  Blackie,  a  contemporary  of  Bentham, 
writes: 

"  Utihtarianism  is  talked  of  in  the  streets  and  commented  on  in  the 
closet;  and  numbering,  as  it  does,  amongst  its  advocates  some  of  the  most 
astute  intellects  of  the  age,  it  certainly  does  deserve  an  attentive  exami- 
nation. Never  was  a  system  ushered  in  with  greater  flourish  of  trumpets 
and  a  more  stirring  consciousness  on  the  part  of  its  promulgators  that  a 
new  gospel  was  being  preached  which  was  to  save  the  world  at  least  from 
centuries  of  hereditary  mistake."^ 

The  movement  was,  however,  it  must  be  remembered,  preeminently  an 
intellectual  and  philosophical  one.  It  did  not  reach  primarily  into  the 
factory  and  into  the  field,  and  the  awakening  of  the  lower  classes  to  their 
part  in  the  social  welfare  was  the  work  of  more  active  educational  and 
philanthropic  agencies  than  philosophic  codes.  Also  all  of  the  technique 
in  the  methods  by  which  greatest  happiness  was  to  be  secured  and 
exactly  in  what  it  consisted  was  left  to  the  slow  discovery  of  scientific 
experiment  and  investigation. 

The  Utilitarians  took  over  the  principle  of  Christianity,  often  for- 
gotten, but  now  regarded  as  cardinal, — the  greatest  good  of  mankind — 
and  made  it  into  a  philosophy  of  life, — of  government,  of  economics,  all- 
comprehensive.  But  most  of  them,  while  accepting  organized  religion 
as  a  means  both  of  teaching  and  enforcing  ethical  ideals,  yet  regarded  their 
principle  of  utility  as  superior  to  any  religious  sanction  or  estabhshed 
authority  of  church  or  state.  In  so  far  as  their  tenets  were  accepted, 
faith  in  any  creed  as  the  sole  and  necessary  means  of  salvation  was  absurd. 
Furthermore,  the  reform  work  which  Bentham  and  the  Mills  undertook 
added  practical  motives  to  these  theoretical  considerations  in  deepening 
their  lack  of  sympathy  with  the  Established  Church.  They  were  refor- 
mers and  radicals.  The  influence  of  the  church  was  strongly  conserva- 
tive, sometimes  fiercely  conservative,  and  this  tended  to  embitter  them 
against  ecclesiasticism.  Accordingly,  James  Mill,  writing  under  the 
Beauchamp  pseudonym,  attacked  not  the  truth  but  the  utiUty  of  religi- 
ous belief.     He  pointed  out  that 

"the  conception  of  a  despot-God,  having  no  end  in  view  but  his  own 
glory,  leads  to  the  formation  of  a  class  set  apart  for  the  service  of  the 

^  Blackie,  J.  S.:  Four  Phases  of  Morals,  p.  281, 


79 

divine  sovereign,  a  class  whose  interest  is  thrown  against  the  intellectual 
progress  of  society  and  to  whose  interest,  its  interests  are  sacrificed. "^ 

Hating  the  clerical  order,  therefore,  he  failed  to  see  that  the  ethical 
interests  of  the  living  church  both  had  been  and  would  continue  to  be 
modified  by  men  of  deep  conviction.  He  threw  away  the  aid,  which 
great  numbers  of  large-hearted  church  members,  as  individuals,  would 
have  been  glad  to  offer,  if  only  shown  the  need  and  the  way,  to  his 
labors  for  the  general  welfare. 

Several  aspects  of  UtiUtarian  doctrine  were  contributing  factors  in 
stimulating  a  current  recognition  of  social  obligation.  1.  First  and 
foremost,  the  Principle  of  Utility  was  a  philosophical  statement  of  the 
social  ideal — the  standard  of  morality  is  "  the  greatest  happiness  of  the 
greatest  number." 

2.  Secondly,  Utilitarians  maintained  that  the  individual  might  be 
brought  through  education  to  find  his  happiness  in  the  common  happiness. 
Even  so  far  back  as  Cumberland  (1632-1718),  who  was  really  the  first 
to  lay  down  the  UtiUtarian  principle,  we  find  the  statement: 

''The  greatest  possible  benevolence  of  every  rational  agent  towards  all 
the  rest  constitutes  the  happiest  state  of  each  and  all,  so  far  as  depends 
on  their  own  power,  and  is  necessarily  required  for  their  happiness; 
accordingly,  the  common  good  is  the  supreme  law."^ 

Cumberland  suggests  that  the  individual  first  comes  to  act  in  an  altruis- 
tic fashion  because  it  conduces  to  his  own  happiness,  but,  the  habit 
having  been  established,  he  comes  to  act  for  common  weal  without 
thought  of  self.  That  is,  one  finds  his  own  interest  is  not  apart  from, 
but  in  relation  to  the  common  well-being.  As  Harris  points  out  in  his 
Moral  Evolution: 

"The  individual  is  not  an  end  to  which  other  men  are  means  nor  are 
other  men  ends  to  which  he  is  means,  but  every  man  is  at  the  same  time 
end  and  means  in  the  social  organism.  The  Utilitarians  had  really  no 
chasm  to  cross.  There  can  be  no  true  happiness  of  others  which  is  not 
the  happiness  of  the  individual  who  perceives  or  promotes  it." 

Once  this  conviction  generally  established,  the  battle  of  social  ethics  has 
been  won.  When  all  individuals  see  the  good  of  self  in  the  good  of  all, 
a  completely  socialized  world  would  be  at  hand.  Utilitarianism  did  a 
service  by  its  earnest  support  of  this  truth — that  the  more  actively  men 
work  together  for  their  conmion  interests,  the  better  will  the  welfare  of 
each  member  of  society  be  provided  for. 

-  See  Bentham,  "Philip  Beauchamp's,"  pseud:  Analysis  of  the  Influence  of  Nat- 
ural Religion  .  .  .,  p.  33. 

*  Cumberland,  R.:  De  Legihus  Naturae,  Ch.  I,  §4. 


80 

3.  Utilitarianism  emphaticly  asserted  the  worth  of  each  individual. 
The  principle  of  individual  equality  did  not  necessarily  follow  as  a 
corollary  from  the  proposition  that  the  general  happiness  is  the  end, 
but  it  was  not  incompatible  and  was  a  natural  legacy  from  the  "natural 
rights"  views  of  the  18th  century.  Society  is  composed  of  units,  each  of 
whom  counts  for  one.  This  is  the  very  essence  of  democracy,  and  especi- 
ally as  the  contention  appears  in  James  Mill,  it  is  a  reflection  of  his 
enthusiasm  excited  by  the  French  Revolution.  This  principle  means 
that  the  poorer  classes  deserve  just  as  much  attention,  consideration  and 
effort  on  behalf  of  their  best  interests  as  is  given  to  the  more  favored 
part  of  the  population.  This  proposition  accepted,  privilege  is  denounced, 
and  society  must  needs  begin  to  provide  for  the  homes,  education,  and 
amusements  of  the  masses,  even  as  she  builds  her  palatial  hotels  and 
opera  houses  for  the  rich.  However,  this  does  not  mean  any  such  level- 
ling process  as  Grote  fears,  for  society  cannot  and  would  not,  if  she  could, 
knock  off  all  the  differences  in  talent  and  disposition  which  occur  between 
individuals.  Of  course,  society  needs  all  the  tremendously  varied  ca- 
pacities that  go  to  play  the  roles  in  her  economic,  political  and  profes- 
sional life.  Utihtarianism  only  demanded  that  each  person's  happiness 
be  considered  as  desirable  in  the  sight  of  all  as  another's.  The  bird  is 
only  for  a  "square  deal"  for  all,  not  for  stereotyping.  Society  came  to 
realize  that  one  man  was  worth  as  much  as  another,  not  of  course  in 
cash  value  nor  in  work  done,  but  in  his  rights  to  "life,  liberty  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness."  Only  then  did  she  begin  to  approve  whole- 
heartedly of  all  efforts  to  secure  greater  fulness  of  joy  for  such  of  her 
children  as  are  too  weak  or  unfortunate  to  compete  with  the  strong. 

4.  A  new  meaning  was  given  under  the  principle  of  utility  to  the 
pain  or  the  sacrifice  of  the  individual  when  incurred  in  service  of  the 
larger  whole.  Even  the  right  to  self-preservation  must  submit  to  the 
higher  law  of  nature  which  consults  the  good  of  all.  That  act  is  not  a 
moral  one  which  tends  to  the  defence  or  preservation  of  the  individual, 
provided  that  suffering  or  sacrifice  on  the  part  of  the  one  would  mean  a 
blessing  to  the  many.  He  is  a  coward  and  untrue  to  the  highest  law  of 
nature,  who  refuses  to  go  into  danger  provided  he  can  save  others  more 
useful  to  society  than  hunself.  In  other  words,  Utihtarianism  empha- 
sized service  in  the  cause  of  the  whole  social  organism  even  though  it 
cost  pain  and  labor  and  even  death  to  the  individual. 

5.  Utilitarianism  annulled  the  old  legalistic  conceptions  of  virtue 
as  resting  in  a  payment  of  one's  debt  to  God  by  means  of  adoration  and 
belief.     It  declared  that  no  supernatural  sanctions  were  necessary  to 


81 

stamp  an  act  as  moral.  The  government  and  betterment  of  the  world 
was  definitely  taken  over  into  the  hands  of  man.  There  was  to  be  no 
more  bHnd  faith  in  a  predestined  order  of  things  and  in  the  necessity  of 
evil,  but  virtuous  activity  was  to  consist  in  fighting  to  change  the  old 
order,  in  seeking  to  make  more  happiness  and  less  misery  in  the  world 
of  today  than  was  found  in  the  world  of  yesterday. 

"The  new  secularists  had  their  awakening  to  a  sense  of  intolerable 
misery  pervading  the  whole  world;  but  the  sin  whose  presence  they  felt 
and  deplored  was  social  rather  than  individual,  a  disease  and  corruption 
of  the  body  politic,  not  a  fall  of  the  single  soul.  Nor  was  there  any  call 
for  supernatural  interference  to  set  the  disjointed  framework  right. 
What  interest  had  perverted,  interest  better  instructed  might  retrieve."^ 

As  already  impHed,  the  formula  "the  greatest  happiness  of  the 
greatest  number"  refers  only  to  this  world.  J.  S.  Mill  often  said  that  he 
knew  no  more  reason  for  doubting  immortality  than  for  accepting  it — 
but  at  the  most,  it  is  only  a  hope,  an  uncertain  possibility.  But  the 
morality  of  actions  rests  on  no  such  insecure  basis.  The  virtue  of 
actions  performed  in  this  world  must  be  judged  by  the  standards  of  this 
world,  namely  by  their  contribution  of  good  to  Uving  persons. 
"The  feeling  was  that  the  attention  of  the  best  men  and  women  had 
been  too  long  exhausted  upon  the  next  life,  while  the  affairs  of  this  life 
were  left  to  people  of  second-rate  goodness  and  intensity.  ...  To 
make  two  blades  of  grass  grow  where  one  grew  before,  to  see  to  it  that 
"  there  is  more  food  for  all  men  and  better  food  for  every  man,"  to  multi- 
ply opportunities  for  self-development  and  bring  them  within  the  reach 
of  all  men — that  is  the  broad  meaning  of  the  doctrine  of  utiUty.  A 
superb  social  enthusiasm  lurks  within  the  arguments  for  bringing  all 
existing  institutions  to  the  test  of  present  use."^ 

Other  worldliness  was  dead,  neglected  and  despised  by  the  popular 
philosophy. 

In  fact,  it  was  just  in  bringing  the  church  to  a  sense  of  its  plainly 
neglected  duties  that  Utihtarianism  rendered  perhaps  .its  greatest  service 
to  the  cause  of  social  progress.  In  seeking  to  feed  her  children  with  the 
bread  of  another  life,  she  had  left  them  only  stones  and  desolation  in 
this  earthly  existence.  Now  came  a  group  of  men,  some  despising  eccle- 
siasticism,  others  merely  ignoring  it — but  all  consecrating  their  lives  to 
the  hghtening  of  the  burdens  of  their  less  fortunate  brethren.  If  the 
church  had  not  awakened,  the  masses  would  have  been  alienated,  not 
largely,  as  was  the  case,  but  wholly.  They  would  have  sought  their 
strength  in  a  religion  of  humanity  whose  ministers  stood  ready  to  offer 

*  Benn,  A.  W.:  Hist,  of  Eng.  Rationalism,  I,  297. 

*  Nash,  H.  S. :  Genesis  of  the  Social  Conscience,  p,  275. 


82 

help  in  time  of  need  and  turned  from  those  who,  promising  only  rewards 
and  punishments  that  never  came,  yet  sought  for  themselves  very  sub- 
stantial earthly  competences.     In  a  letter  to  a  friend  Mill  wrote: 

"  I  have  not  written  it  (the  Utilitarianism)  in  any  hostile  spirit  towards 
Christianity,  though  undoubtedly  both  good  ethics  and  good  meta- 
physics will  sap  Christianity,  if  it  persists  in  allying  itself  with  bad.  The 
best  thing  to  do  in  the  present  state  of  the  human  mind  is  to  go  on  estab- 
lishing positive  truths  .  .  .  and  leave  Christianity  to  reconcile  itself 
with  them  the  best  way  it  can.  By  that  course,  in  so  far  as  we  have 
any  success,  we  are  at  least  doing  something  to  improve  Christianity."^ 

Mill  was  right — his  teachings  did  serve  to  awaken  the  sleeping  Estab- 
lishment and  from  that  day  to  this,  her  bishops  and  prelates  have  been 
increasingly  active  in  social  reform. 

6.  The  greatest  happiness  principle  was  by  no  means  left  dangling  in 
the  air  without  the  effort  to  show  that  in  human  nature  there  is  pro- 
vided a  sufficient  dynamic  towards  its  enforcement.  The  impulse  to 
social  action  Cumberland  and  J.  S.  Mill  found  in  the  instinct  of  benevo- 
lence implanted  in  the  very  make-up  of  man.  Mill  likes  to  speak  of  it  as 
"  the  feeling  of  unity  with  one's  fellow  creatures."  Really  it  is  the  Chris- 
tian principle  of  love  which  is  here  brought  in  as  the  motivating  source  of 
moral  conduct.  It  was  a  principle  which,  however.  Mill  believed  that 
the  representatives  of  Christ  in  the  form  of  the  beneficed  clergy  felt 
only  in  the  weakest  possible  degree. 

7.  A  conception  was  pressed  upon  poUtical  science  which  swung 
over  into  the  ranks  of  social  enthusiasts  those  parliamentarians  who 
were  converted  by  the  UtiHtarian  doctrines.  The  purpose  of  the  state 
was  declared  to  be  the  promotion  of  the  greatest  happiness  of  its  citizens. 
In  other  words,  the  people  are  not  the  creatures  of  the  state,  but  the 
state  is  the  servant  of  the  people.  It  exists  only  to  minister  to  the  pubHc 
welfare.  The  government  is,  therefore,  under  the  heaviest  obligations 
to  assist  the  common  man  to  secure  his  right.  The  individual  has  an 
inherent  right  to  count  for  one  in  the  general  happiness.  It  is  the 
business  of  the  state  to  protect  that  right. 

This  conception  of  the  state  which  Bentham  and  the  Mills  adopted, 
led  them  to  attack  with  vigor  the  idea  of  the  inviolabihty  of  the  law. 
They  set  a  high  value  for  legislation  in  the  furtherance  of  plans  for  social 
betterment.  Mill  especially  emphasized  the  educational  efficiency  of 
the  state,  wishing  it  to  interfere  freely  to  strengthen  and  enlighten. 
He  wished  it  to  promote  a  fairer  distribution  of  property,  which  should 
raise  the  general  standard  of  life  and  discourage  wasteful  luxury.     Bent- 

« MiU,  J.  S.:  Letters,  V.  I,  p.  226. 


S3 

ham,  too,  was  by  no  means  for  letting  things  alone,  but  for  continually 
interfering  with  them.  Anti-social  actions,  previously  unregulated  by 
law,  were  to  be  forcibly  forbidden:  while  virtuous  conduct,  previously 
encouraged  only  by  public  opinion  and  religious  sanction,  was  in  the 
future  to  be  stimulated  by  legislative  rewards.  In  this  way,  Bentham 
sought  for  a  large  amplification  of  governmental  control. 

*'He  really  dealt  a  death-blow  to  superstitious  reverence  for  English 
law.  He  expelled  Mysticism  and  set  the  example  of  viewing  laws  as 
means  to  certain  definition  and  precise  ends.  He  took  a  systematic  view 
of  the  wants  of  society,  for  which  such  a  code  is  to  provide  and  of  the 
principles  of  human  nature  by  which  it  is  to  be  tested."^ 

8.  Utilitarianism  favored  the  success  of  social  ideals  by  creating  an 
interest  in  historic  progress  and  in  the  future  of  the  race.  The  theories 
of  evolution  turned  men's  attention  toward  racial  progress  and  develop- 
ment. But  in  one  aspect  they  glorified  the  survival  of  the  fittest  and  the 
construction  of  increasingly  dominant  and  efficient  personalities.  The 
ethics  of  such  a  conception  would  desire  the  destruction  of  the  weak 
for  the  sake  of  the  exercise  of  power  and  increased  resources  which  it 
gave  to  the  strong.  However,  Utilitarianism  introduced  a  different  end 
as  that  toward  which  the  nature  of  man  determined  him  to  carry  the 
course  of  evolution.  Man  is  not  a  selfish,  non-social  being,  but  is  en- 
dowed with  sympathy  and  with  social  predilections.  His  fullest  develop- 
ment is  bound  up  with  the  progress  of  the  whole  of  society,  and  the 
amount  of  progress  is  indicated  by  the  impetus  given  to  general  happi- 
ness. Years  of  experience  have  taught  the  human  race  to  seek  that 
end.  It  is  not  necessary  to  pause  previous  to  action,  except  in  very 
doubtful  cases,  to  calculate  the  effects  on  general  happiness,  as  many  of 
Mill's  critics  claimed.  At  the  moment  a  man  is  tempted  to  meddle  with 
the  property  or  life  of  another,  he  does  not  begin  debating  whether 
murder  and  theft  are  injurious.  The  whole  duration  of  the  human 
species  has  worked  out  the  answer  for  him  and  implanted  in  his  moral 
conscience  an  instant  revolt  against  anti-social  conduct.  Utilitarianism, 
therefore,  lent  confidence  to  the  student  of  evolution,  seeking  the  welfare 
of  the  race,  that  in  aiding  the  weak  he  was  not  hindering  human  progress, 
but  on  the  contrary  he  was  working  toward  the  real  goal  of  the  species — 
the  perfect  happiness  of  all  mankind. 

9.  The  work  and  writings  of  the  Utilitarian  enthusiasts  stimulated 
scientific  investigation  of  the  true  character  of  human  happiness  and  of 
the  means  which  contribute  to  that  end.  That  which  contributes  per- 
manently and  in  the  long  run  to  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  individual 

'  Birks,  T.  R. :  Modern  Utilitarianism,  p.  109. 


84 

is  practically  coincident  with  his  own  greatest  good.  Evidently,  momen- 
tary pleasure  and  immediate  results  are  only  small  factors  in  the  deter- 
mination of  what  really  produces  happiness.  Science  must  enter  in  and, 
by  a  careful  estimation  of  future  consequences  and  by  a  study  of  influences 
on  a  wide  complex  of  associated  conditions,  must  determine  what  really 
does  conduce  to  the  highest  happiness.  The  agent  need  not  stop  before 
action  to  follow  out  all  these  investigations  any  more  than  the  mathema- 
tician or  the  chemist  feels  that  he  must  rework  each  formula  before  he 
employs  it.  But  the  need  of  scientific  study  is  of  great  consequence 
that  all  men  may  profit  by  the  researches  of  the  few.  This  scientific 
attitude  Bentham  did  his  utmost  to  promote. 

''He  introduced  into  morals  and  politics  habits  of  thought  and  modes 
of  investigation  which  are  essential  to  the  idea  of  science,  and  the  absence 
of  which  made  them  fields  of  interminable  discussion  leading  to  no  re- 
sult. His  methods  constituted  the  value  of  what  he  did — he  thus  formed 
the  intellect  of  many  thinkers  who  never  adopted  or  have  abandoned 
many  of  his  opinions."^ 

Bentham  was  seeking  no  longer,  as  were  Hume  and  Paley,  to  find  a 
rational  explanation  for  things  as  they  were,  but  to  make  a  revolutionary 
demand  for  things  as  they  ought  to  be.  What  things  ought  to  be  and  how 
the  physical  agencies  are  to  be  employed  in  bringing  such  about  only 
science  can  answer.  In  science,  therefore,  lay  the  hope  of  the  furtherance 
of  the  principle  of  utility. 

Incidentally,  it  must  be  remarked  that  Bentham's  attacks  upon  the 
clergy,  in  so  far  as  they  were  a  privileged  class  oppressive  of  society,  per- 
formed a  large  service  in  the  emancipation  of  thought  and  of  research 
from  the  bondage  of  orthodoxy.  The  sin  and  the  evil  against  which 
the  Utilitarians  declared  their  war  was  not  divinely  sanctioned,  but  was 
subject  to  removal  by  untiring  and  intelligent  effort  for  the  conquest  of 
the  secrets  of  nature.  Human  happiness  is  the  achievement  of  men, 
not  the  gift  by  miracle  of  God. 

10.  Finally,  in  any  discussion  of  the  contributions  of  Utihtarian 
theory  toward  the  social  movement,  mention  must  not  be  omitted  of  the 
concrete  accomplishments  by  its  greatest  exponents.  Definite  legislation 
was  promoted,  and  conviction  of  the  desirability  of  specific  changes  was 
spread.  In  1817,  Bentham  and  James  Mill,  pubUshed  a  reform  cate- 
chism, advocating  practically  universal  suffrage,  vote  by  ballot  and 
annual  parliaments.  J.  S.  Mill  and  his  disciples  were  moved  by  "the 
deep  and  thorough  conviction  that  the  elevation  of  the  poorer  classes 
is  the  main  end  of  all  social  inquiries."^    In  order  to  further  that  end, 

*Birk.s:  Uiilitarianism,  p.  109,  Q. 

"  Stephen,  L. :  Eng.  Utilitarians,  III,  p.  242-3. 


85 

Mill  twice  ran  for  election  to  the  House  of  Commons,  setting  a  new 
standard  of  purity  in  politics  by  refraining  from  spending  a  penny  for 
the  promotion  of  either  campaign.  Especially  he  championed  the  cause 
of  suffrage  for  women.     Concerning  this  interest  he  says : 

"Of  all  my  recollections  connected  with  the  House  of  Commons,  that 
of  my  having  had  the  honor  of  being  the  first  to  make  the  claim  of  women 
to  the  suffrage  a  Parliamentary  question,  is  the  most  gratifying,  as  I 
beUeve  it  to  have  been  the  most  important,  public  service  that  circum- 
stances made  it  in  my  power  to  render.  ..."  "The  emancipation  of 
women  and  cooperative  production  are,  I  fully  believe,  the  two  great 
changes  that  will  regenerate  society."^^ 

He  speaks  of  the  "accident  of  sex"  and  the  "accident  of  color"  as  equally 
unjust  grounds  for  political  distinctions.  Furthermore,  he  freely  advo- 
cated such  broad  socialistic  principles  as  the  following:  land  ought  to 
belong  to  the  nation  at  large;  national  education  should  be  purely 
secular;  raise  of  wages  does  tiot  necessarily  mean  rise  of  prices;  the 
interests  of  society  would  be  better  consulted  by  laws  restrictive  of  the 
acquisition  of  too  great  masses  of  property  than  by  attempting  to 
regulate  its  use."  He  lent  his  hearty  support  to  the  formation  of  coop- 
erative societies  and  trades  unions.  He  felt  it  to  be  a  good,  in  so  far  as 
workingmen,  by  combining  in  such  organizations,  chose  to  seek  their 
prosperity  and  common  advantage  in  united  action  rather  than  in  unre- 
stricted individual  freedom  and  the  assertion  of  personal  greed.  To  the 
employees  of  the  Messers  Brewster  of  New  York,  he  wrote  as  follows  | 

"The  plan  of  industrial  partnership  seems  to  me  highly  worthy  of 
encouragement,  as  uniting  some  of  the  advantages  of  cooperation  with  the 
principal  advantages  of  capitaUst  management.  We  should  hope  indeed 
ultimately  to  arrive  at  a  state  of  industry  in  which  the  work-people  as  a 
body  will  either  themselves  own  the  capital,  or  hire  it  from  its  owners. 
Industrial  partnerships,  however,  are  valuable  preparation  for  that  state; 
and  .  .  .  their  competition  may  prevent  cooperative  associations  of 
workmen  from  degenerating."^^ 

Even  such  a  severe  critic  as  Grote  concedes  that  "practical  Utili- 
tarianism deserves  praise  for  its  efforts  to  diffuse  the  means  of  happi- 
ness." But  Hugh  EUiott  most  adequately  expresses  Mill's  worth  in 
these  terms: 

"It  would  be  altogether  impossible  to  name  any  philosopher  who  has 
had  the  welfare  of  humanity  so  deeply  at  heart,  or  who  has  laid  himself 
out  so  consistently  and  unsparingly  in  laboring  for  the  progress  of  his 
fellowmen."^^ 

10  Mill,  J.  S.:  Letters,  V.  II,  pp.  157  and  272. 

"  See  Mm,  J.  S.:  Letters,  V.  II,  pp.  243,  256  and  258. 

12  Mill,  J.  S.:  Letters,  V.  II,  p.  230-1. 

"In  Mill,  J.  S.:  Letters,  V.  I,  p.  XXXVI. 


CHAPTER  XII 

The  Workingman 
Alienation  from  the  Church — Rise  of  Trades- Unionism — Socialism 

AND  cooperative  SOCIETIES 

Up  to  this  point  in  our  discussion,  we  have  been  noting  the  rise  of 
social  ideals,  largely  in  the  upper  and  middle  classes.  We  have  been 
especially  concerned  with  the  ethical  aims  which  manifested  themselves 
as  predominant  in  the  various  religious  and  cultural  movements  of  the 
passing  years.  There  has  been  good  reason  for  this  direction  of  our 
inquiry.  Throughout  the  eighteenth  and  earlier  centuries,  it  was  almost 
as  natural  for  a  man  to  consider  himself  a  member  of  some  church  as  a 
citizen  of  the  nation.  The  ethical  aims  and  purposes  sanctioned  by  the 
leaders  of  religious  thought  in  those. times  can  justly  be  taken  as  largely 
indicative  of  the  beliefs  of  society  in  general. 

The  industrial  class,  as  successors  of  the  old  yeomanry,  did  not  rise 
into  prominence  until  the  late  eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth  centuries. 
Even  at  that  time,  Methodism  held  the  poorer  and  laboring  classes  to  a 
large  extent  under  church  influence  and  in  the  sway  of  a  deep  religious 
fervor.  As  the  century  progressed,  workingmen  became  more  and  more 
branded  as  distinctive  class.  Their  needs,  yes,  their  very  poverty,  grew 
more  and  more  distressing  as  the  cities  grew  in  congestion  and,  what  is 
particularly  striking,  an  alienation  from  religion  and  all  of  its  institutions 
became  ever  increasingly  marked.  It  becomes  no  longer  possible  to 
trace  out  the  ideals  supported  by  the  church  and  to  declare  them  to  be 
therefore  the  prevalent  notions  of  society  in  the  large.  It  is  necessary 
to  follow  the  life  and  the  thought  development  which  was  manifested 
in  the  history  of  the  laboring  classes  throughout  the  century.  By  that 
means,  it  can  be  noted  not  only  how  social  sympathies  were  built  up 
among  the  workers  themselves,  but  also  what  reaction  the  attitude  of 
the  humble  had  upon  the  ideals  of  the  more  fortunate. 

The  causes  of  the  wide-spread  aUenation  from  the  church  are  very 
important  for  our  study,  because  they  were  often  the  expression  of  a 
social  attitude  among  the  poor  and  of  an  anti-social  position  taken  by 
the  aristocracy.  Furthermore,  the  withdrawal  from  the  church  of  the 
classes  in  whose  interest  the  service  of  the  Christian  life  was  supposed 


87 

to  be  largely  engaged  gradually  brought  home  to  the  clergy  a  sense  of 
their  own  remissness.     The  situation  is  admirably  put  by  Harris: 

"This  restoration  of  religion  to  its  humaneness  is  perhaps  due,  in 
part,  to  assertion  of  rights  in  society,  to  the  socialistic  spirit,  and  to  the 
waning  influence  of  the  church  over  certain  classes  who  regard  it  as  an 
exclusive  and  otherworld  institution.  Thus  morality  and  religion  act 
and  react  on  each  other.  "^ 

The  social  development  had  really  outrun  the  religious.  A  moral 
conviction  grew  up  among  the  masses  that  the  churches  were  not  organ- 
ized for  the  good  of  all,  but  for  the  maintenance  of  vested  interests. 
They  withdrew,  and  the  preachers  awoke  to  the  fact  that  they  were 
talking  only  to  those  whom  God  had  already  well  provided  for.  The 
remaining  seats  were  empty.  The  church  found  it  must  go  out  to  seek 
and  to  save  that  which  had  been  lost  to  it.  The  whole  character  of  the 
church  became  altered,  though  of  course  very  slowly,  in  its  effort  to 
reach  the  workingman.  Then,  in  going  out  seriously  to  learn  to  know 
these  men,  it  discovered  how  stupidly  ignorant  it  had  been  of  their 
social  and  physical  needs.  In  the  work  of  meeting  these  needs  by 
improving  living  conditions  and  spreading  education  it  found  new 
inspiration  and  was  enriched  by  the  new  blood  which  entered  its  service. 
A  new  vision  of  opportunity  was  opened  up  which  soon  entered  into 
its  ethical  conception,  not  only  as  a  privilege,  but  as  a  necessity  to  a 
complete  life. 

a)  Political.  The  political,  industrial,  intellectual  and  social  con- 
ditions under  which  the  workingman  lived  demand  our  attention.  Much 
political  agitation  excited  the  interests  of  the  industrial  classes  during 
this  latter  haM  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  Reform  Bill  of  1832  had 
admitted  to  suffrage  only  the  very  thriftiest  of  the  workingmen.  But 
in  1868  Great  Britain  admitted  her  laboring  classse  to  their  just  influence 
in  the  direction  of  pubUc  affairs.  Meanwhile,  a  vigorous  agitation  had 
been  carried  on.  The  workers  became  convinced  that  the  only  way 
they  could  secure  their  rights  was  to  equip  themselves  so  as  to  be  in  a 
position  to  demand  them.  The  burden  of  taxation  lay  with  heaviest 
hand  upon  those  who  were  just  barely  able  to  meet  the  cost  of  their 
food  and  shelter. 

The  EstabUshed  Church  did  not  exert  its  influence  in  their  behalf 
either  in  favor  of  suffrage  or  against  oppressive  taxation.  It  treated 
the  people  as  children  or  paupers,  not  as  reasonable  and  independent 
men.    It  was  aristocratic  through  and  through,  while  the  ideals  of  the 

•  Harris,  G.:  Moral  Evolution,  p.  214. 


88 

workers  were  growing  daily  more  democratic.  Accordingly,  the  indus- 
trial classes  felt  themselves  thrown  upon  their  own  resources,  and  they 
accepted  the  challenge.  Leaders  appeared  in  all  trades  and  were  given 
superb  political  training  in  the  organization  of  the  trades  unions.  The 
working  classes  had  found  themselves  severely  in  need  politically.  If 
the  upper  classes  or  the  church  had  been  sincerely  imbued  with  social 
ideals,  they  would  have  eagerly  set  to  work  to  meet  those  needs.  They 
did  not. 

b)  Industrial.  The  industrial  situation  contributed  powerfully  to 
the  necessity  for  the  growth  of  a  deep  social  sympathy.  We  have  seen 
how,  at  the  beginning  of  the  factory  system,  the  employees  of  large 
concerns  were  put  into  a  peculiarly  helpless  condition.  Their  position 
did  not  rapidly  improve  in  the  course  of  the  century.  In  most  cases, 
they  did  not  acquire  the  homes  in  which  they  lived,  and  they  were 
unable  to  introduce  sanitary  improvements  and  beautify  them  as  they 
might  wish.  Their  independence  was  lost — they  must  work  a  certain 
number  of  hours,  pay  the  rent  demanded  and,  in  many  cases,  buy  at  the 
company's  store,  or  be  discharged  without  means  of  subsistence.  Hours 
of  labor  were  only  very  slowly  brought  under  regulation,  and  sixteen 
hours  was  frequently  considered  the  day's  demand.  In  fact,  the  situa- 
tion became  such  as  absolutely  to  demand  attention.  In  the  period  of 
the  Evangelical  revival,  a  considerable  group  of  influential  men  came 
forth  as  the  champions  of  labor.  Many,  like  Mill,  were  not  allied  with 
the  church.  But  society  in  general  by  no  means  awoke  to  their  needs. 
The  workers  discovered  that  there  was  hope  for  themselves  from  within 
as  well  as  from  without.  The  industrial  trades  unions  opened  up  a 
whole  new  world  of  possibiUties. 

c.  Intellectual.  The  appearance  of  social  ideals  both  among  the 
laboring  classes  and  among  others  interested  in  their  welfare  was  stimu- 
lated by  several  intellectual  factors.  Throughout  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, education  was  more  and  more  widely  put  within  reach  of  the 
children  of  the  poor,  until  in  1876  it  was  made  compulsory.  In  a  cor- 
responding degree,  the  mental  horizon  and  general  abihty  of  the  lower 
classes  were  progressively  enlarged.  About  the  middle  of  the  century, 
Workingmen's  Colleges  were  established  in  at  least  a  dozen  industrial 
centers.  Free  libraries  were  founded  on  every  hand.  And  what  is  still 
more  important,  literature  was  brought  within  the  understanding  of 
the  moderately  well-educated  man.  Science  was  presented  in  popular 
form,  history  written  by  masters  of  style  and  fiction  crammed  with 
historical  and  scientific  knowledge.    Now  men  do  not  read  Uterature  of 


89 

this  high  character  without  acquiring  a  certain  largeness  of  view  and 
critical  attitude  that  makes  them  impatient  of  the  narrow  and  unrea- 
sonable. Education  served  to  give  the  workingman  confidence  in  him- 
self, a  realization  of  his  importance  to  society,  and  a  knowledge  of  the 
methods  by  which  he  might  awaken  a  stupid  pubHc  to  consciousness  of 
his  just  rights. 

In  the  meantime,  while  the  intellectual  acumen  of  the  masses  was 
rapidly  developing,  religious  education  stood  still,  content  with  old 
methods,  old  agents,  old  standards.  Every  effort  had  been  by  church 
and  government  to  keep  radical  thought  away  from  the  common  people. 
When  any  popular  book  had  appeared  like  Woolston's  Discourses  on 
Miracles  or  Paine's  Age  of  Reason,  the  authors  were  persecuted  by  the 
bishops,  if  within  reach.  But  the  workers  had  begun  to  reason  and  no 
repressive  measures  could  stop  them.  The  bishops  were  but  fighting 
against  the  tide  and  defeating  their  own  best  interests.  They  lost  their 
chance  to  appeal  as  to  reasonable  men.  The  workers  turned  to  accept 
the  radicalism  in  whose  doubts  they  saw  just  so  many  blows  at  the 
bigoted  and  hated  priesthood.  They  "stood  aloof  from  the  churches, 
criticised  them,  disliked  them,  doubted  their  reality,  denied  their  sin- 
cerity, and  became  sceptical  of  all  they  beHeved."^  The  workman  really 
withdrew  moved  by  deep  conviction.  He  felt  the  churches  were  not 
working  for  the  good  of  all  but  for  the  good  of  a  few.  He  beHeved  that 
many  who  supported  them  most  liberally  were  allowing  the  machines  of 
their  factories  to  grind  out  the  very  life-blood  of  thousands.  He  became 
convinced  that  the  clergy  were  parasitic  flatterers  and  their  wealthy 
patrons  insincere  schemers.  He  forced  the  church  to  look  in  upon 
herself,  and  an  extensive  work  of  purging  was  begun.  The  great  minds 
of  the  church  were  stirred  to  denounce  the  neglect  of  duty  by  their 
fellow  clergy.  Such  men  as  Whately,  Dr.  Arnold,  Dean  Stanley,  and 
Milman  sought  to  give  assistance  to  those  perplexed  by  modern  beliefs, 
and  to  put  the  church  into  her  right  position  of  social  sympathy  with  all 
classes. 

d)  Social.  Strong  social  influences  were  at  work  building  up  a  class 
consciousness  among  industrial  employees  which  at  the  same  time  awak- 
ened in  them  a  sense  of  their  place  and  value  in  the  social  organism. 
As  the  factories  grew  in  size  and  a  group  of  capitalists  took  over  many 
plants,  the  administrative  and  technical  offices  in  the  concerns  became 
sharply  divided.  Financiers  were  developed  whose  business  it  was  to 
negotiate  loans,  to  issue  stocks  and  bonds  and  to  protect  its  iijterest 

'  Fairbairn,  A.  M. :  Religion  in  History  and  in  Modern  Life^  p.  28. 


90 

in  the  money  market.  The  running  of  the  machinery  and  the  handling 
of  the  employees  were  left  to  foremen.  The  head  of  a  great  firm  became 
invisible  to  his  people,  and  to  him  his  people  were  thought  of  no  more 
and  no  less  than  the  other  parts  of  the  machinery.  The  capitalist  and 
his  workers  tended  to  become  alienated  and  lack  of  knowledge  always 
breeds  lack  of  sympathy  and  justice. 

While  in  one  aspect  this  division  seemed  to  be  substituting  class 
ethics  for  social  ethics,  it  was  just  this  estabUshment  of  a  wide  cleft  in 
society  which  brought  to  public  attention  the  need  for  social  ideals. 
The  nation  became  aroused  to  the  fact  that  its  best  interests  could  never 
be  served  by  internecine  strife.  The  public  became  aware  that  there  was 
a  public.  The  nation  came  to  consciousness  of  itself.  It  saw  that  the 
state  was  an  organism  and  that  its  present  troubles  were  due  to  the 
super-development  of  the  head  without  regard  to  the  nourishment  of  the 
members  who  performed  the  daily  routine.  Society  had  been  starving 
those  very  classes  upon  whose  labor  she  was  dependent  for  her  own  sup- 
port. 

Now  the  churches  had  tended  to  follow  the  line  of  least  resistance 
and  to  adapt  themselves  to  the  division  of  classes.  In  a  wealthy  church, 
a  poorly-dressed  stranger  was  given  a  back  seat,  and  the  child  of  humble 
parentage,  more  sensitive  than  the  adult,  could  not  bear  the  sting  of 
social  ostracism  in  the  Sunday-school.  But  there  is  nothing  workingmen 
more  abhor  than  the  calling  in  of  divine  blessing  and  religious  sanctions 
upon  class  distinctions.  This  is  a  fundamental  reason  why  the  Protes- 
tant Church  of  England  lost  its  hold  on  the  masses  while  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  of  Ireland,  which  compelled  rich  and  poor  to  bow  to- 
gether before  the  altar,  grew  in  strength.  The  worker  refused  to  put 
faith  in  a  church  or  its  God  which  regarded  a  man  any  better  because  of 
birth  or  wealth.  The  aristocrat  who  went  to  worship  where  only  other 
aristocrats  were,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  was  alienating  himself 
from  his  people,  lowering  rehgion  in  their  eyes,  and  helping  to  speed 
the  social  revolution. 

The  threatening  danger  was  by  no  means  averted,  and  much  of  the 
socialism  heard  on  the  streets  today  is  bitterly  anti-ecclesiastical  and 
even  atheistical.  Signs  seriously  portended  that  the  thoughtful,  educated 
workingman  would  follow  Bentham  and  the  Mills  in  identifying  the  exist- 
ing church  with  mere  reaction.  The  only  thing  that  averted  such 
catastrophe  was  that  the  broad-minded  men  of  the  church  were  led  by 
the  prevailing  dissatisfaction  to  see  their  mistake  and  to  welcome  heartily 
new  social  purposes  into  their  organization.    The  doors  of  many  a  sane- 


91 

tuary  were  thrown  open  and  its  best  sons  sent  out  to  win  back  by  untir- 
ing and  loving  effort  in  all  forms  of  social  service  those  whom  another 
generation  had  ostracized  and  forgotten. 

Politically,  socially,  and  industrially,  the  lower  classes  felt  that  they 
were  oppressed  and  denied  their  rightful  share  of  the  goods  of  society. 
The  lack  of  social  ideals  among  the  privileged  classes  explains,  in  a 
rather  negative  fashion,  why  they  did  not  exert  themselves  more  fully 
and  promptly  on  behalf  of  the  unprivileged.  Positively,  their  motives 
are  best  explained  in  this  brief  quotation  from  J.  S.  Mill: 

"I  ascribe  it  (the  bad  feelings  in  the  higher  classes)  to  sympathy 
of  officials  with  officials,  ...  to  the  sympathy  with  authority  and 
power,  generated  in  our  higher  and  upper  middle  classes  by  the  feeling 
of  being  specially  privileged  to  exercise  them,  and  by  living  in  a  constant 
dread  of  the  encroachment  of  the  class  beneath,  which  makes  it  one  of 
their  strongest  feehngs  that  resistance  to  authority  must  be  put  down 
per  fas  et  nefas.''^^ 

Meeting  Uttle  sympathy  from  above  the  industrial  classes  themselves 
developed  initiative  in  effecting  this  social  revolution.  They  found  that 
their  strength  lay  in  organization.  Very  early  the  conviction  had  been 
brought  home  to  factory  employees  that  they  had  common  interests  as 
to  wages,  hours  of  labor,  protection  in  sickness  and  accident,  and  the  con- 
ditions of  their  daily  living.  However  against  the  formation  of  trade 
unions  stood  the  incompetency  of  their  own  class,  the  power  of  the  law 
and  the  force  of  public  opinion.  The  clergy  had  always  preached  "  con- 
tentment" as  the  great  virtue  of  the  lower  classes.  Philanthropists 
feared  workmen  were  not  wise  enough  to  see  their  own  real  and  ultimate 
interests;  and  the  general  public  dreaded  anti-social  action  by  labor 
organizations  in  the  form  of  unreasonable  demands  and  lawlessness. 
Accordingly,  at  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth  century,  an  act  of  ParUa- 
ment  had  made  it  a  crime  for  persons  to  combine  to  advance  wages  or  to 
decrease  the  amount  of  their  work.  But  in  1824  through  thediUgent 
efforts  of  the  Utilitarians,  the  law  against  combinations  of  laborers  was 
duly  repealed.*  From  then  on,  trades  unionism  expanded  with  pro- 
digious success  in  England  and  with  parallel  strides  in  America. 

The  trades  unions  have  proved  important  agents  in  equipping  their 
members  with  efficiency  as  citizens  and  in  giving  them  breadth  of  vision 
concerning  the  problems  of  society.  They  have  developed  a  high  degree 
of  skill  in  administration  among  their  leaders.  There  has  been  much  of 
both  mental  and  moral  discipUne  involved  in  the  organization  and 

3  Mill,  J.  S.:  Letters,  V.  II,  pp.  69-70. 

*  Cheyney  gives  this  date,  differing  from  Enc.  Brit. 


92 

management  of  the  societies.  Especially  have  the  unions  created  a 
feeling  of  brotherhood  between  all  workers.  The  ideal  of  individualism 
has  been  discredited.  The  individual  gives  up  his  own  freedom  of  action 
for  the  sake  of  higher  good  to  be  attained  through  collective  action. 

The  results  were  found  to  be  satisfactory — wages  were  raised,  hours 
shortened,  but,  above  all,  the  treatment  by  employers  became  more 
considerate  when  the  fact  had  been  brought  home  to  them  that  they 
that  they  were  dealing  with  men  and  not  with  machines.  Success  meant 
great  joy  to  the  workers  themselves  and  they  felt  the  glow  of  enthusiasm 
in  a  righteous  cause,  and  longed  that  workers  even  in  other  hues  of 
industry  might  enjoy  the  same  blessings  they  had  won.  While  the  strike 
in  Australia  lasted  during  the  summer  of  1890,  sixty  thousand  dollars 
was  sent  out  by  sympathizing  English  trade-unions.  "Laborers,  who 
a  few  years  ago  were  deemed  almost  below  being  hoped  for,  now,  for  the 
sake  of  seeing  justice  done,  divide  their  scanty  earnings  ^ith  the  confec- 
tioner girls,  the  farmhands,  or  with  working  men  at  the  other  end  of  the 
world. "^  The  new  unions,  by  creating  a  sense  of  brotherhood  between 
all  workers,  have  accomplished  much  toward  the  social  and  the  moral 
education  of  their  members  and  of  the  world. 

The  moral  enthusiasm  and  altruistic  feelings  to  which  working  men 
could  no  longer  sincerely  give  scope  in  the  church,  found  expression  in 
the  common  cause  of  labor.  Intense  loyalty  animated  their  trades 
unions  and  clubs.  And  what  must  be  especially  noted,  is  that  their 
aims  have  been  social  as  contrasted  with  individual.  The  older 
competitive  idea  of  each  man  striving  for  himself  hy  himself  has  disap- 
peared from  the  thinking  of  the  working  classes.  At  first,  until  the 
laboring  classes  had  gained  plain  justice  and  the  recognition  of  their 
unions,  their  efforts  were  on  behalf  of  their  own  interests  purely — but 
the  purposes  were  none  the  less  a  great  step  away  from  purely  personal 
greed.  But  now  their  group  consciousness  is  widening  and  widening 
until  it  begins  to  include  the  whole  of  society.  Organized  labor  has 
already  done  considerable  toward  preserving  the  peace  of  Europe.  It 
has  strengthened  the  nation  by  educating  its  members.  It  has  reheved 
the  burdens  of  charity  and  taxation  by  providing  benevolent  funds  and 
insurance  fees  as  protection  in  case  of  sickness  or  death.  It  has  con- 
tributed much  and  will  contribute  more  of  influence  in  affecting  legislation 
on  the  side  of  a  pure  democracy  and  of  less  corruption  in  government. 
A  note  in  the  Independent  for  June  14,  1915,  reads,  "Organized  labor  in 
N.  Y.  State  is  urgmg  the  Constitutional  Convention  to  propose  woman 

*  Woods,  R.  A. :  English  Social  Movements,  p.  19. 


93 

suffrage,  the  eight  hour  day,  the  prohibition  of  child  labor,  state  insurance, 
and  widow's  pensions."  The  action  of  certain  organizations  has,  it 
must  be  admitted,  been  distinctly  anarchical  and  anti-social,  but  the 
general  principle  of  organization  has  worked  toward  the  spread  of  social 
ideals  among  the  members  and  in  the  nation  at  large. 

Concerning  certain  manifestations  of  the  spirit  of  cooperation  just  a 
word  must  be  said.  In  1844,  the  Rochdale  Pioneers  gave  the  real  start 
to  the  cooperative  movement.  In  1900,  the  total  business  done  by 
cooperative  societies  in  the  United  Kingdom  amounted  to  more  than 
one  hundred  and  ninety  million  dollars,  with  a  net  profit  to  members  of 
twenty  million  dollars.  The  principle  of  profit-sharing  has  enjoyed  con- 
siderable extension  particularly  in  the  United  States,  and  is  especially 
important  for  the  purposes  of  our  inquiry,  as  it  is  an  indication  of  a 
social  spirit  which  bridges  the  gulf  between  employer  and  employee. 
The  principle  of  cooperation  is  an  expression  of  the  spirit  which  seeks  "  to 
live  and  let  live,"  and  the  history  of  its  acceptance  is  the  history  of  the 
growth  of  strong  social  feelings  of  sympathy  and  respect  and  interde- 
pendence. 

The  Socialist  propaganda,  as  the  explicit  creed  of  an  organized  political 
party,  did  not  rise  into  wide  prominence  during  the  period  within  which 
our  discussion  has  been  confined,  but  rather  only  within  recent  decades. 
The  socialistic  spirit,  however,  in  its  simple  form  as  standing  for  united 
effort  on  behalf  of  the  public  good,  is  really  the  spirit  whose  growth  we 
have  been  tracing.  The  formation  of  a  definite  party,  taking  the  name 
"Socialists"  represents  the  crystallization  of  a  certain  phase  of  slowly- 
developing  social  idealism  into  a  thorough  consciousness  of  itself.  It  has 
presented  definitely  and  concretely  to  men  a  platform  on  which  to  stand 
and  a  code  of  moral  purpose  to  which  to  adapt  their  action  as  moral. 
As  usually  understood,  socialism  stands  for  the  complete  surrender  of  the 
individual's  rights  to  a  central  public  control.  We  have  been  studying 
the  development  of  social  ideals  in  a  much  broader  sense,  believing  that 
wherever  any  single  individual  took  as  his  aim  the  welfare  of  others, 
he  was  contributing  his  part  to  the  good  of  the  social  whole.  The 
socialistic  platform,  in  the  narrower  sense,  quite  largely  hands  over  the 
social  ideal  to  the  state.  It  is  the  stcUe  which  is  to  have  charge  of  all 
human  institutions  and  hence,  to  have  an  almost  exclusive  monopoly  of 
those  agencies  which  contribute  to  human  welfare.^    Without  discussing 

'  Certain  recent  writers  consider  "State  Socialism"  as  a  transitional  stage  in  the 
way  toward  socialism,  but  not  as  itself  socialism.  See  Walling,:  Larger  Aspects  of 
Socialism,  Introd. 


94 

the  merits  of  such  a  scheme,  it  is  none  the  less  evident  that  the  social 
ideal  of  service  upon  the  part  of  each  individual  for  the  good  of  all  is 
much  broader  than  the  platform  of  "Socialism,"  and  does  not  necessarily 
advocate  government  ownership. 

It  must  be  noticed  that  the  SociaHstic  propaganda  has  been  a  factor 
at  work  seeking  to  give  popularity  to  social  enthusiasm.  It  has  postulated 
unreservedly  that  the  one  and  only  moral  end  of  action  is  the  greatest 
good  of  the  greatest  number  in  this  world.  Socialism  has  insisted  that 
all  economic  questions  must  be  settled  from  the  ethical  point  of  view. 
Agriculture,  manufacturing,  transportation,  industrial  combinations,  are 
all  to  be  forced  to  serve  society  instead  of  controlling  it.  The  aim  of 
production  is  to  be — not  profits  for  the  rich  man,  but  cheaper  goods  for 
all.  The  endeavor  of  Socialism  in  its  purest  form  is  to  carry  out  brother- 
hood. The  central  idea  is  that  each  one  shall  contribute  to  the  common 
welfare  whatever  his  strength  and  capacity  will  permit,  and  that  none 
must  suffer  for  lack  of  anything  he  really  needs.  Socialistic  theory  has 
been  considerably  modified  in  the  course  of  its  working  out  in  practice. 
The  great  Belgian  cooperative  societies  which  allow  no  want  among 
their  members  through  sickness  or  unemployment  do  not  stand  for  equal 
pay  for  all  workers,  skilled  and  unskilled,  energetic  and  lazy.  They 
enforce  only  a  minimum  wage,  and  above  that  reward  the  laborer 
according  to  his  deserts.  Managers  receive  liberal  advances  in  salary 
over  those  subservient  to  them,  only  they  cannot  secure  the  excessive 
incomes  which  our  capitalistic  system  allows  American  life  insurance 
presidents  to  annex.  All  employees  can  be  paid  goodly  wages  since  there 
are  no  dividends  which  must  be  distributed  among  greedy  stockholders. 
Furthermore,  these  successful  societies  do  not  stand  for  the  destruction 
of  the  family  nor  for  the  education  of  children  away  from  the  home. 
They  have  found  it  best  to  take  every  step  in  order  to  secure  the  defense 
and  preservation  of  the  home.  Whether  such  a  programme  as  conserva- 
tive Socialism  has  outUned  has  fully  justified  itself  on  trial  is  not  vitally 
important  to  our  study.  We  are  interested  only  in  the  fact  of  the  motive 
which  has  prompted  Socialism  and  we  find  that  it  has  felt  itself  to  be 
striving  after  cosmopolitan  social  ideals. 

To  say  the  least.  Socialism  has  been  intensely  valuable  in  creating 
discussion  of  the  great  ethical  problems  of  society.'    Socialistic  criticism 

'  Of  course,  it  is  true  that  in  the  effort  to  gain  certain  moral  ends,  individuals  and 
societies  who  have  taken  to  themselves  the  name  "Socialists"  have  often  adopted 
very  immoral  means,  such  as  arson,  sabotage  and  even  murder.  As  in  every  reform 
movement,  serious  and  painful  mistakes  have  been  made.  But  along  with  these 
vicious  accompaniments,  there  are  more  permanent  results  which  are  good. 


95 

has  led  to  an  examination  from  the  moral  standpoint  of  such  principles 
as  those  of  private  property,  freedom  of  person,  free  contract,  and 
vested  interests.  Where  any  principle,  however  sacred  by  precedent, 
has  been  found  to  work  toward  oppression  of  the  poor,  it  has  been 
denounced. 

What  Socialism  really  desires,  is  that  the  economic  life  should  be 
entirely  subordinate  to  the  other  departments  of  social  life.  It  wishes 
leisure  and  opportunity  for  the  cultivation  of  the  higher  human  faculties. 
The  constant  strife  to  "earn  a  living,"  which  hinders  the  full  develop- 
ment of  one's  mental  and  physical  powers  must  be  lessened  for  the 
working  classes. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

Science 

The  two  centuries,  through  which  we  have  been  tracing  the  rise  of  the 
social  ideal  to  wide  and  popular  acceptance  have  also  been  the  two 
centuries  whose  distinctive  and  most  notable  achievements  have  been  in 
the  realm  of  science.  The  nineteenth  century  particularly  became  a 
scientific  era  par  excellence,  during  which  the  pursuit  of  science  and  the 
appUcation  of  its  discoveries  in  industry  became  the  basic  interest  around 
which  all  civilization  centered.  It  is  only  natural  that  science  should 
have  proved  deeply  influential  in  molding  ethical  thought  as  well  as 
business  enterprise. 

1.  In  the  first  place,  the  very  purpose  and  meaning  of  science  is  far 
from  lying  in  individuality.  The  principles  of  chemistry  or  the  facts  of 
geology  are  anything  but  personal  affairs.  Psychology  works  with  the 
laws  of  the  human  mind,  not  yours  or  mine,  but  with  the  conditions  under 
which  psycho-physiological  processes  operate,  either  normally  or  ab- 
normally. Individual  variations,  are,  of  course,  studied  but  largely 
because  of  the  light  which  they  will  shed  on  the  necessity  and  regularity  of 
variation  in  general.  In  other  words,  science  is  eternally  seeking  laws, 
principles,  truths  which  shed  light  on  society  in  general,  on  the  course 
of  history  and,  to  be  sure,  on  applications  in  individual  cases.  She 
finds  enormous  variability  in  nature,  but  at  the  same  time  she  discovers 
a  wonderful  unity  in  variety.  It  is  only  because  she  finds  the  cosmos 
organic  that  she  is  able  to  proceed.  It  is  only  because  her  laws  are 
capable  of  wide  appHcation  that  there  is  value  in  her  undertakings. 
It  is  only  in  relation  to  general  truths  that  "  Freaks"  are  of  interest,  and 
possess  special  meaning.  But  even  they  are  confidently  assumed  to  be 
the  product  of  natural  law  and  capable  of  being  brought  into  harmony 
with  the  meaning  of  existence  in  general.  Science,  therefore,  is  in  her  very 
nature  universal.  Her  truth  is  no  egoistic,  individual  affair;  it  is  common, 
comprehensive,  open  to  all  men  and  valuable  for  all  men. 

2.  The  progress  of  knowledge  reveals  ever  more  minutely  the  rela- 
tionship of  every  part  to  the  whole  and  to  its  brother  and  sister  parts. 
The  influences  of  environment  and  even  of  prenatal  conditions  are  dis- 
discovered  to  be  strikingly  determinative  of  individual  character  and 
physique.     Disease,  communicated  from  one  person  to  another,  is  shown 


97 

to  be  a  basal  factor  in  producing  delinquency  and  imbecility.  Possi- 
bilities in  public  education  and  in  public  care  for  the  health  and  sur- 
roundings of  children  criminally  inclined  point  out  hopeful  means  of 
solving  two  of  society's  greatest  problems — the  suppression  of  vice  and  the 
lessening  of  the  enormous  tax  for  institutional  support  of  the  anti-social. 
The  enforcement  of  quarantine  and  inoculation  protect  from  the  ravages 
of  epidemics.  Science  has  given  a  support  to  the  rule  ''each  for  all  and 
all  for  each"  such  as  no  multiplication  of  philosophical  dispositions  ever 
could  have  produced.  It  showed  death  to  be  the  penalty  for  neglect  of 
one's  fellows  or  of  the  social  good.  Carlyle's  "Irish  Widow"  proved 
her  sisterhood  by  infecting  that  society  which  did  not  provide  for  her 
needs  with  the  deadly  germs  of  typhus  fever. ^  Medicine,  botany,  me- 
chanics— all  have  revealed  the  interrelation  of  part  to  part  and  the 
impossibility  of  the  functioning  of  the  whole  when  a  cog  is  slipped  or  a 
vital  cell  diseased. 

3.  The  scientific  spirit  has,  in  the  long  run,  made  certain  contribu- 
tions toward  a  democratic  spirit.  Gerald  B.  Smith  remarks  that  "the 
scientific  attitude  is  an  inevitable  accompaniment  of  democracy,"  but 
the  converse  is  equally  true.  To  be  sure,  science  has  sometimes  tended 
to  the  upbuilding  of  an  aristocracy  of  intellect  and  power,  side  by  side 
with  an  aristocracy  of  birth  and  wealth.  Discrimination  has  not  been 
unknown  by  physicians  in  favor  of  wealthy  patients.  But  none  the 
less,  in  its  broadest  aspects,  science  treats  man  as  man.  Such  studies  as 
sociology,  psychology  and  anthropology  tend  to  consider  people  in 
abstraction  from  adventitious  factors.  In  accordance  with  the  laws  of 
specificity  of  function,  vision  is  localized  in  the  occipital  lobe,  alike  of 
the  millionaire  and  of  the  vagrant.  If  the  physician  is  to  remove  the 
appendix  of  a  king,  he  must  use  the  same  tools  and  apply  the  same 
knowledge  of  human  anatomy,  as  if  he  were  operating  upon  a  circus 
clown.  In  other  words,  nature  and  the  science  of  nature  are  no  respecters 
of  persons.  In  their  common  subjection  to  the  laws  of  health  and  dis- 
ease, all  men  are  created  equal.  It  is  true  that  men  are  not  endowed 
with  a  common  strength  of  physique,  but  neither  are  they  born  with  equal 
intelHgence  in  political  affairs.  The  fact  that  all  humans  have  equal 
rights  before  the  bar  of  natural  law  is  a  strong  reinforcement  to  the 
claim  of  democracy  that  they  should  possess  equal  rights  before  the  bar 
of  civil  law. 

4.  Whether  intentionally  or  incidentally,  the  progress  of  science 
has  worked  for  human  welfare.     Its  discoveries  have  so  improved  living 

1  Carlyle:  Past  and  Present,  Bk.  Ill,  Ch.  II. 


98 

conditions,  for  all  except  the  very  poor,  that  if  a  shoemaker  of  1800  were 
to  step  in  to  Chicago  today  to  take  up  his  trade  of  shoe  repairing,  he  would 
think  he  had  dropped  into  a  veritable  Utopia.  He  would  find  sewing 
machines  at  hand  to  make  his  work  more  rapid  and  more  accurate  than 
the  old  hand  method.  Public  conveyances  impelled  by  steam  or  electri- 
city— an  entire  novelty  to  him — would  carry  him  ten  miles  for  a  few 
cents  to  his  little  garden  home  if  he  preferred  to  live  outside  of  the 
density  of  the  city.  Bicycles  and  moving  picture  shows  would  be  at 
hand  for  his  physical  recreation  and  enjoyment.  He  would  drink  water 
which  had  come  from  a  public  filtration  plant.  He  and  his  children  could 
go  to  school  day  or  night,  absolutely  free,  to  learn  what  science  has  thus 
far  revealed.  Truly  science  has  transformed  human  life  within  the  cen- 
tury. A  thousand  new  joys  and  opportunities  have  been  put  within  the 
reach  of  men.  Society  has  not  yet  secured  full  enjoyment  of  all  of 
these  blessings  for  all  earth's  children,  but  science  has  been  doing  its 
part  directly  towards  the  realization  of  the  social  ideal  by  adding  so  richly 
to  the  treasures  of  life.  For  whether  or  not  the  botanist  in  his  study  of 
the  structure  of  plants  was  aiming  at  utilitarian  results,  the  fact  remains 
that  his  researches  have  produced  better  food,  better  shelter  and  better 
clothing  for  all  mankind.  It  is  true  that  the  inventions  of  science  are  at 
first  usually  too  expensive  to  benefit  the  common  man,  but  at  length 
production  is  standardized,  even  the  automobile  bids  fair  to  come  within 
reach  of  the  average  farmer  in  Kansas.  In  the  long  run,  every  profound 
advance  in  scientific  discovery  has  come  to  work  good  for  the  progress  of 
humanity. 

5.  The  achievements  of  science  have  not  only  directly  promoted 
social  welfare,  they  have  greatly  enlarged  men's  motives  in  pursuing  the 
moral  ideal.  The  conception  of  social  amelioration  has  so  altered  during 
the  century  as  to  be  scarcely  recognizable  as  the  same  ideal.  Physiology, 
psychology  and  sociology  have  brought  new  knowledge  of  the  physical 
and  so  cial  causes  of  crime  and  of  the  reformation  which  improved  living 
and  health  conditions  may  bring  about  in  the  criminal.  The  idea  of 
punishment  has  changed  into  that  of  correction  and  reformation.  The 
purpose  of  indiscriminate  and  ignorant  "charity"  has  turned  into  an 
endeavor  to  rehabihtate  the  homes  of  the  poor.  Dispensaries  have  been 
reenforced  by  wide  effort  for  preventive  sanitation.  Kindness  to  em- 
ployees has  developed  into  a  wide  system  of  compulsory  insurance  and 
profit-sharing.  In  other  words,  science  has  sought  out  the  causes  which 
underHe  human  ills.  These  discovered,  she  has  experimented  until  she 
has  found  the  cures  and  the  proper  legislation  to  inhibit  the  growth 


99 

of  these  unfavorable  circumstances.  The  method  of  science,  its  pro- 
cedure, has  been  a  great  factor  in  reinterpreting  social  purpose.  It  has 
taught  the  philanthropist  he  must  look  for  causes  and  remedies  in  pubhc 
ills  exactly  as  the  horticulturist  studies  fruit  bUghts  and  the  chemist 
watches  the  effect  of  different  elements  in  his  explosives. 

New  methods  discovered  and  new  opportunities  opened,  it  then  be- 
came the  duty  of  the  social  enthusiast  to  incorporate  corresponding 
aims  within  his  ideal  for  humanity.  He  must  seek  to  enforce  the  new 
ideas  of  preventive  medicine,  to  secure  the  suggested  legislative  reforms 
and  to  introduce  the  new  plumbing  into  the  homes  of  the  poor.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  century,  the  social  ideal  meant  largely  to  be  kind 
to  those  already  poor  and  already  suffering;  at  its  close,  the  demand  is 
that  the  moral  agent  do  everything  in  his  power  to  raise  wages,  guaran- 
tee health  conditions  and  provide  proper  education  so  that  misery  shall 
be  attacked  before  it  is  begun. 

6.  The  epoch-making  conception  of  evolution  was  not  without  its 
effect  in  stimulating  interest  in  the  social  ideal.  Evolution  held  out  the 
idea  of  progress.  It  reenforced  the  hope  which  is  the  greatest  incentive 
to  disinterested  service — that  the  race  is  actually  progressing  and  that 
no  individual  who  has  contributed  his  mite  to  the  forward  movement  or  in 
combat  with  retrogressive  tendencies  shall  have  lived  in  vain.  It  pointed 
out  the  possibility  of  human  consciousness  directing  the  course  of  evolu- 
tion in  purposive  fashion.  Did  science  then  urge  the  development  of 
supermen  at  the  expense  of  the  weakhngs?  To  a  Nietzsche,  yes,  but 
to  a  Harris,  No!  In  the  minds  of  many  scientists,  evolution  pointed 
out  that  any  competitive  system  which  destroyed  the  weak  in  some 
respects  at  least  impaired  the  best  development  of  the  srtong.  Bad 
drinking  water  may  kill  the  feeble,  but  it  also  impairs  the  vitality  of  the 
stalwart.  Insufficient  government  regulation  of  business  might  allow  an 
unscrupulous  financier  to  pile  up  hoards  of  wealth,  crushing  out  hundreds 
of  less  able  competitors.  But  whether  that  enslavement  to  the  office, 
that  passion  for  mere  accumulation,  that  deadening  to  keen  moral  sense 
and  the  higher  interests  of  life  made  for  the  best  interests  of  the  hoarder 
can  very  much  be  doubted.  On  the  other  hand,  it  may  well  be  that  in 
the  seroice  of  the  weak,  the  strong  does  truly  enlarge  his  own  nature, 
quicken  his  intelligence,  and  develop  his  physical  powers.  At  any  rate, 
the  concept  of  evolution  has  proved  a  reenforcement  to  the  social  ideal, 
in  so  far  as  it  has  turned  men's  attention  toward  the  progress  of  the  race. 
It  has  shown  that  individuals  profit  not  at  the  expense  <?/ society,  but  rather 
that  they  draw  their  strength /ri?w  society. 


100 

7.  A  long  step  has  been  taken  away  from  the  individual  religious 
ideal  of  Puritanism  in  the  emphasis  of  science  upon  the  ceaselessness  of 
strife  in  the  cosmic  process.  The  ethics  which  sought  the  salvation  of 
the  personal  soul  glorified  peace  of  mind.  It  sought  a  perfection  and 
sanctification  within  the  religious  consciousness.  On  the  other  hand, 
science  aims  rather  at  betterment,  improvement,  and  when  speaking  of 
perfection,  really  pretends  to  know  only  the  direction  in  which  we  as 
men  are  travelling.  Nor  is  there  offered  any  hope  of  rest.  The  glory 
of  man  is  struggle.  But  what  is  all  the  strife  about  and  whither  is  it 
tending?  Science  and  the  new  social  gospel  both  answer,  toward  the 
welfare  of  human  life. 

8.  Science  transferred  the  attention  of  men  away  from  the  meta- 
physical to  the  physical.  She  brought  her  devotees  away  from  heaven 
and  put  them  to  work  on  earth.  She  did  not  put  a  stop  to  philosophy, 
but  speculation  found  its  chief  interest  in  the  nature  of  reality  and  in  a 
philosophical  interpretation  of  life.  The  future  life  lost  its  charm,  and 
definitions  of  the  soul,  of  salvation,  and  of  heaven  were  neglected.  The 
progress  of  invention,  the  harnessing  of  the  wind,  the  wave,  and  the 
clouds  fascinated  the  attention  of  men.  Anxiety  over  a  future  unknown 
was  swallowed  up  in  the  enthusiasm  of  present  victory. 

9.  Finally,  the  increased  inter-communication  which  came  as  the 
result  of  the  perfection  of  steam  transportation  strengthened  the  growth 
of  social  consciousness.  Previous  to  the  inventions  of  the  railroad  and 
steamboat,  the  citizens  of  England  had  travelled  but  little..  Only  the 
well-to-do  could  afford  the  expensive  stage-coach  transportation.  But 
the  appearance  of  Fulton's  steamer  in  1807  and  of  Stephenson's  locomo- 
tive in  1830  heralded  the  approaching  popularity  of  travel  which  was 
so  to  flourish  as  to  reveal  in  one  year — 1875 — a  record  of  six  hundred 
miUion  passengers  carried  by  the  railways  of  the  United  Kingdom. 
The  telegraph  and  telephone  still  further  quickened  communication  by 
making  it  instantaneous.  Finally,  the  advent  of  the  penny  newspaper 
in  1861  signified  that  even  the  poor  man  had  become  a  world  citizen. 
Whereas  in  1840,  the  postal  system  had  carried  36,000,000  newspapers, 
fifty  years  later  it  was  handHng  160,000,000  and  the  total  annual  circu- 
lation was  estimated  at  one  thousand  million. 

In  the  course  of  the  century,  science  had  transformed  the  people  of 
Europe  and  America  from  dwellers  in  towns  to  students  of  world  life  and 
world  knowledge.  London  was  brought  nearer  to  New  York  and  Hong 
Kong  than  it  had  been  to  Glasgow  or  Dublin.  Commercial  lines  bound 
the  nations  with  chains  of  economic  sympathy.    The  effect  of  a  revo- 


•:•^?^:^•'^0l 

lution  in  Morocco  was  felt  in  the  stock  market  of  Chicago.  Intercom- 
munication had  developed  a  sense  of  the  unity  of  society.  It  spread 
through  all  men  a  knowledge  of  social  structure  and  of  pubhc  needs. 
It  popularized  social  ideals  by  means  of  the  spread  of  knowledge  of  the 
conditions  of  life. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
Democracy  and  Free  Public  Education 

No  society  organized  under  the  plan  of  an  absolute  monarchy  or  of 
an  oligarchy  was  fruitful  ground  for  the  development  of  social  purpose 
among  the  underlings.  Plato  felt  that  only  the  philosophers  should  con- 
stitute the  ruling  class,  for  only  they  could  know  what  contributed  to 
the  welfare  of  the  state.  They  would  then  see  to  it  that  the  ordinary 
needs  of  the  artisans  and  slaves  were  looked  after.  But  these  latter  were 
by  nature  assigned  permanently  to  their  low  station,  and  through  their 
ignorance  were  unable  to  live  a  truly  virtuous  life — theirs  was  really  an 
unmoral  existence.  The  ancient  aristocratic  feeling  of  England  was 
deeply  imbued  with  this  Platonic  conception.  The  king  ruled  by  divine 
right  and  the  nobles,  with  traditions  inherited  from  feudal  days,  held 
that  their  privileges  were  essentially  in  the  plan  of  nature  as  belonging 
to  their  superior  wisdom  and  blood.  The  masses  were  considered,  even 
in  large  measure  by  themselves,  to  be  poor  dumb  creatures  who  knew 
not  their  own  good  and  must  be  guided  and  protected  lest  they  drop  into 
devious  pit-falls.  In  such  a  situation,  a  conception  of  duty  towards 
one's  fellows  could  only  arise  in  a  most  rudimentary  fashion  among  the 
ignorant  plebeians.  They  had  no  powers  and  no  privileges.  They  had 
nothing  to  share  save  a  frugal  hospitality  with  their  immediate  associates. 
A  sense  of  duty  towards  the  underlings  could  and  did  appear  in  the  upper 
classes — but  it  was  largely  the  medieval  notion  of  charity.  It  entailed 
merely  the  showering  of  a  few  trifles  from  a  rightful  abundance  upon  a 
perfectly  just  frugality.  No  one  questioned  for  a  moment  that  authority 
and  feasting  were  the  rightful  lot  of  the  aristocrat,  and  obedience  and 
meagerness  the  share  of  the  humble. 

The  prevalent  attitude  in  the  German  nation  is  well  illustrated  by 
a  few  sentences  quoted  from  a  paper  by  a  German  professor  on  German 
Literature  and  the  American  temper  which  appeared  in  the  Atlantic 
Monthly  some  months  before  the  Great  War  broke  out. 

"I  verily  believe  that  it  is  impossible  for  an  American  to  understand 
thefeelings  which  a  loyal  German  subject,  particularly  of  the  conservative 
sort,  entertains  toward  the  State  and  its  authority.  That  the  State 
should  be  anything  more  than  an  institution  for  the  protection  and  safe- 
guarding of  the  happiness  of  individuals;  that  it  might  be  considered  as 
a  spiritual,  collective  personaHty,  leading  a  life  of  its  own,  beyond  and 
above  the  life  of  individuals— these  are  thoughts  utterly  foreign  to  the 
American  mind,  and  very  near  and  dear  to  the  heart  of  a  German. 


103 

Upon  this  paragraph,  the  editor  of  the  World's  Work  comments  as  folows: 
''The  professor  is  right.  The  American  takes  Lincoln's  description 
of  the  State  "of  the  people,  for  the  people,  and  by  the  people"  Uterally. 
The  conception  of  a  State  leading  a  life  of  its  own  beyond  and  above  the 
life  of  individuals  is  outside  our  philosophy.  Such  a  State  might  have 
ambitions  at  variance  with  the  wishes  and  interests  of  the  majority  of 
its  subjects.  It  is  essentially  an  undemocratic  doctrine — this  doctrine 
of  an  irresponsible  State." 

While  Germany  has,  it  is  true,  made  mighty  strides  in  humanitarian 
progress  during  the  past  century,  the  same  sort  of  social  ideal  has  not 
been  able  to  take  root  there  as  has  grown  up  in  England  and  America. 
The  heart  of  Teutonic  morality  was  and  is  every  man  for  the  nation  rather 
than  each  man  for  his  fellow.  Democracy — whether  in  a  republic  or 
under  the  guise  of  Socialism  in  Germany — stands  for  the  moral  worth 
of  the  individual  plebeian  with  a  connection  and  thoroughness  such  as 
aristocracy  has  never  assumed. 

The  appearance  of  true  social  ideals,  as  we  conceive  them  today 
could  come  only  when  society  had  begun  to  regard  the  great  mass  of  the 
people  as  more  than  mere  numskulls  and  puppets.  Now  the  concept 
of  democracy  has  been  one  of  slow  growth  and  evolution,  but  it  does 
entail,  even  in  its  first  glimmerings,  the  idea  of  some  value  set  upon  all 
those  who  go  to  make  up  the  state.  ''The  evolution  of  democratically 
regulated  States,  as  distinct  from  those  ordered  in  the  interests  of  a  small 
group,  or  of  a  special  class,  is  the  social  counterpart  of  the  development 
of  a  comprehensive  and  common  good."^  A  purely  aristocratic  state 
had  made  no  pretence  to  government  in  the  interests  of  the  people  — 
its  premise  was  that  government  was  in  the' interests  of  the  nation, 
and  the  nation  meant  the  ruling  class  who  had  control  of  all  wealth  and 
position. 

England  even  in  the  days  of  Puritan  and  Cavalier  had  already  passed 
out  of  the  feudal  stage.  Hobbes'  Leviathan  (1651)  represented  the  philo- 
sophic formulation  of  the  conception  of  government  as  instituted  by  the 
people,  who  handed  over  their  individual  rights  to  the  central  control  in 
order  to  preserve  order  and  guarantee  justice  for  all.  The  two  great 
revolutions — that  which  created  the  Commonwealth  and  that  which 
expelled  the  Stuarts  were  essentially  popular  in  character.  To  quote 
from  Kidd: 

"It  is  in  the  movement  which  upheaved  England  in  the  seventeenth 
century  that  we  see  for  the  first  time  in  Western  thought  the  manifestoes 
of  modern  democracy.  ...    In  the  "Agreement  of  the  People,'  dated 

*  Dewey  and  Tufts:  Ethics,  p.  474. 


104 

Jan.  15,  1649,  we  find  (1)  the  doctrine  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  people; 
(2)  of  supreme  power  vested  in  a  representative  assembly  elected  for  a 
limited  time;  (3)  of  equal  voting  power  for  all  who  pay  taxes;  (4)  of 
religious  freedom;  (5)  of  the  separation  of  Church  and  State."^ 

Though  Parliament  was  throughout  the  eighteenth  century  and  until 
the  reforms  of  1832  and  1867,  an  aristocratic  body,  yet  its  growing 
responsiveness  to  pubhc  opinion  and  its  increasingly  steadfast  resistance 
to  royal  pretensions  became  more  and  more  marked.  Although  even 
into  the  twentieth  century,  a  certain  social  class  has  preserved  for  itself 
a  number  of  legal  rights  and  privileges  on  the  basis  of  birth  and  inherited 
wealth,  the  steadily  advancing  triumph  of  democratic  principles  has 
involved  the  progressive  emancipation  of  the  lower  classes.  It  has 
brought  them  to  a  consciousness  of  themselves,  and  society  to  a  conscious- 
ness of  them.  This  means  that  the  daily  toilers  have  come  to  an  enlarging 
appreciation  of  the  value  of  their  labor  to  the  national  prosperity.  They 
have  recognized  their  function  and  have  more  intelligently  attempted  to 
carry  out  that  function.  They  have  seen  that  neglect  of  their  rights 
and  failure  to  grant  them  suffrage  had  kept  them  from  contributing  their 
share  as  men  to  the  welfare  of  the  state.  The  laborer  with  his  intuitions 
had  contribution  to  make  to  the  progress  of  law  and  justice  even  as  had 
the  capitalist  with  his  business  experience.  As  his  sphere  of  opportunity 
was  widened,  his  sense  of  obligation  increased  correspondingly.  Today, 
no  one  is  louder  than  the  laborer  to  proclaim  the  social  ideal — that  all 
the  elements  of  society  must  work  in  harmony  for  the  good  of  each  and 
the  good  of  all. 

The  growth  of  democracy  did  not  mean  the  extension  of  pubhc  aims 
to  the  humble  citizen  alone,  his  enfranchisement  stirred  the  upper  classes 
to  a  wider  conception  of  the  national  good.  The  "illustrious"  had  been 
only  too  prone  to  conceive  the  welfare  of  the  state  to  consist  in  the 
furthering  of  their  own  business  interests.  Toward  that  end,  the  good 
which  they  seemed  to  desire  for  the  lower  classes  was  simple  contentment 
grounded  on  ignorance.  With  the  rise  of  the  masses  to  power  and  self- 
assertion,  the  pride  of  the  aristocracy  became  noticeably  diminished. 
They  began  to  recognize  in  a  new  way  the  value  and  rights  of  the  laboring 
class,  and  accordingly  their  interest  in  its  welfare  and  zeal  on  its  behalf 
radically  increased.  Of  course,  bitterness  against  the  "agression"  and 
"insolence"  of  the  workers  has  been  common  enough,  but,  in  general, 
philanthropic  effort  upon  the  part  of  capitaUsts  and  proprietors  had 
attained  a  degree  of  enthusiasm  at  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century 

*  Kidd:  Western  Civilization,  p.  105. 


105 

which  had  been  undreamed  of  at  its  beginning.  The  spread  of  democracy 
had  not  only  acquainted  the  poor  with  a  knowledge  of  their  worth  and 
responsibilities;  it  had  also  impressed  the  rich  with  their  own  dependence 
upon  the  humble  worker  and  their  duties  toward  him.  "PoUtical  chan- 
ges, now,"  writes  Hobhouse,  "which  have  given  us  constitutional  democ- 
racy have  paved  the  way  for  what  we  might  call  a  social  democracy 
seeking,  by  the  organized  expression  of  the  collective  will,  to  remodel 
society  in  accordance  with  humanitarian  sentiment."^ 

Democracy  as  a  social  principle  rests  on  the  doctrine  of  the  essential 
equality  of  all  men  and  their  equal  worthiness.  "A  man's  a  man  for  a* 
that."  It  does  not  mean  equality  of  inner  disposition  and  talent:  it 
does  mean  the  essential  right  of  each  human  to  physical  intellectual 
freedom  and  to  the  opportunity  for  self-development  and  expression. 
The  chief  agency  which  has  resulted  in  universal  acceptance  of  this 
doctrine  and  principle  has  been  the  spread  of  free  public  education. 
Just  in  so  far  as  the  German  system  of  public  education  has  fallen  short 
of  offering  equal  opportunity,  just  in  that  degree  has  it  fostered  class 
distinction  and  failed  to  allow  a  common  fellowship  to  grow  up  among 
the  people.  In  England,  the  rapid  growth  of  towns  and  rise  of  manufac- 
turing toward  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century  brought  to  notice  the 
need  of  an  elementary  education  for  the  masses  as  differentiated  from  the 
previous  classical  education.  The  moral  evils  attendant  upon  industri- 
aUsm  alarmed  the  religious  consciousness  and  prompted  an  educational 
movement.  The  early  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  displayed  inEng- 
land  a  very  considerable  and  well-planned  attempt  to  cope  with  the  social 
evil  of  poverty  by  educational  means.  At  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  the  further  development  of  industry  and  the  social  unrest  follow- 
ing the  French  Revolution  showed  more  imperatively  than  before  the 
need  of  a  national  system  of  day  schools.  Yet,  although  wide  extension 
was  effected  from  1832  on  by  means  of  governmental  grants  to  denom- 
inational schools,  it  was  not  until  1870  that  jurisdiction  was  placed  in 
the  hands  of  school  boards,  chosen  by  pubUc  suffrage.  Throughout  the 
century,  however,  the  establishment  of  schools  for  poor  children  had  been 
an  outlet  for  the  expression  of  a  noble  social  enthusiasm.  Bequests  by 
wealthy  persons  toward  the  founding  of  educational  institutions  became 
so  numerous  as  finally  to  call  forth  a  feeble  effort  to  check  them.  The 
best  work  conducted  by  many  religious  bodies  was  that  in  behalf  of  their 
day  and  Sunday-schools. 

'Hobhouse:  Social  Evolution,  p.  183,  ff. 


106 

In  the  United  States,  an  elementary  secular  education  was  opened 
to  all  of  school  age,  wherever  community  funds  allowed  its  establishment, 
even  from  the  days  of  the  Revolution.  In  fact  as  early  as  1646,  an  act 
of  the  Massachusetts  theocracy  had  required  every  town  in  the  colony 
containing  fifty  households  to  estabhsh  a  free  pubhc  school  to  be  main- 
tained as  a  direct  charge  upon  local  property.  During  the  course  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  education  was  made  compulsory  up  to  the  age  of  four- 
teen in  the  majority  of  the  states. 

In  America,  rather  than  in  England,  the  public  school  drew  together 
the  children  from  all  stations  in  life  and  there  on  the  playground  and  in 
the  recitation  room,  they  met  in  open  and  even  competition.  The  boy 
of  rich  parents  has  there  often  gained  a  wholesome  respect  for  the  poor 
lad  who  could  lick  him  in  fistic  combat  or  spelling-match.  In  the  close 
associations  of  childhood,  the  future  citizens  have  learned  to  live  together 
in  harmony,  realizing  that  one  has  as  many  rights  in  the  school  as  another. 
The  young  aristocrat  has  often  sought  the  aid  of  a  plebeian  scholar  in 
preparing  for  an  examination  and  has  shouted  his  lungs  out  for  the  son 
of  a  shoemaker  as  he  brought  in  a  "home  run"  or  shot  the  "pigskin"  over 
the  goal  line.  Prejudices  have  disappeared  with  intimate  association. 
And  the  youth  in  their  common  study  and  athletics  have  learned  a  lesson 
of  the  value  of  each  member  in  the  school  group  to  the  others,  which 
could  not  have  been  wholly  lost  as  they  became  citizens  of  the  larger 
political  group.  To  be  sure,  class  Unes  have  often  been  drawn  within  our 
American  elementary  schools,  but  this  is  possible  only  because  certain 
city  districts  are  often  arranged  according  to  the  incomes  of  their  inhabi- 
tants. High  Schools  too  have  often  become  snobbish.  But  in  general 
the  tendency  of  public  education  as  opposed  to  private  has  been  to  mix 
the  children  of  all  races  and  nationalities  and  wealth  in  one  process  of 
Americanization.  The  pubUc  school  has  done  more  than  merely  to 
instil  the  supposedly  democratic  idea  of  leveling,  for  its  members  have 
been  generally  ranked  according  to  intellectual  proficiency  and  athletic 
prowess  quite  without  regard  to  birth  or  wealth.  This  has  created  a 
recognition  that  no  valid  line  can  be  drawn  between  higher  and  lower 
classes.  The  poor  students  prove  to  be  on  the  whole  as  valuable  members 
of  the  school  group  as  do  their  more  well-to-do  fellows. 

In  summary,  then,  it  may  be  said  that  the  extension  of  general  edu- 
cation has  been  a  decided  stimulus  to  the  spread  of  social  ideals.  It  has 
brought  the  different  classes  of  society  to  knowledge  of  each  other.  It 
has  developed  a  recognition  of  the  value  and  place  of  each  class  in  the 
social  whole.    No  claim  has  been  set  forth  that  free  pubhc  education  has 


107 

appeared  as  a  product  of  democratic  ideals — the  fact  that  Prussia  early 
developed  an  admirable  system  of  general  free  elementary  schools,  while 
England  lagged  far  behind  refutes  any  such  assumption.  It  can,  how- 
ever, be  maintained  that  the  plan  of  free  education,  once  estabUshed  and 
estabUshed  along  lines  which  do  not  provide  for  the  class  distinctions  of 
the  German  schools  has  rapidly  furthered  that  mutual  understanding 
among  all  citizens  which  breeds  harmony  and  appreciation.  This  edu- 
cational system  then  has  been  itself  a  cause  and  a  stimulator  of  such 
ideals.  Even  in  Germany,  it  may  be  shown  that,  by  the  raising  of  the 
standard  of  hving  among  workingmen,  the  Volkschule  instruction  has 
increased  their  own  self-respect  and  the  respect  of  others  for  them. 

Finally,  the  rapid  development  of  education  has  spread  knowledge 
of  the  construction  of  society  and  of  the  methods  for  its  improvement. 
Teachers  have  made  it  an  aim  in  their  teaching  of  science  to  show  that  its 
fundamental  purpose  is  to  subject  the  laws  of  nature  to  man's  will.  Bot- 
any is  to  tell  man  what  plant  Ufe  can  do  for  his  welfare  in  supplying 
materials  for  his  food,  shelter  and  comfort.  Zoology  works  to  discover 
perfection  of  breeding  of  animal  life  in  order  that  it  too  may  work  more 
efficiently  in  the  service  of  man.  Anatomy  and  medicine  aim  to  combat 
and  prevent  disease.  Psychology  seeks  for  knowledge  of  efficiency  of 
memory,  of  the  control  of  the  will,  of  the  importance  of  habit  and  even 
of  individual  talents  as  pointing  to  capacity  for  specific  vocations. 
Finally,  even  in  the  science  of  education  itself,  we  are  told  that  the 
school  must  be  adapted  to  the  child  and  not  the  child  to  the  school. 
Thus  has  the  general  increase  in  intellectual  proficiency  served  to  bring 
in  the  kingdom  of  man.  It  has  taught  him  to  respect  himself,  and  to 
respect  all  men,  and  has  given  him  enthusiasm  in  the  cause  of  human 
service.  "To  redress  all  wrongs,  to  do  away  with  all  evils,  to  confer  all 
goods,  to  create  a  new  world" — this  has  been  proclaimed  as  the  avowed 
end  of  Science  of  Economics,  of  Government,  of  Philosophy. 


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